EarthCARE Ground Processor Development Status

The Earth Clouds, Aerosol and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE), ESA's sixth Earth Explorer Mission, is a joint European-Japanese mission which aims at an improved understanding of cloud-aerosol-radiation interactions so as to include them correctly and reliably in climate and numerical weather prediction models. The required measurements will be acquired in a synergistic way by the high spectral resolution backscatter cloud/aerosol lidar (ATLID) operating at 355 nm, the 94 GHz Doppler cloud profiling radar (CPR) contributed by JAXA, the multi-channel spectral imager (MSI), and the total-wave and short-wave broad-band radiometer (BBR). The nominal duration of the EarthCARE mission is three years, including a six-months commissioning phase. The synergistic use of data results in a rather complex processing system with a large number of interconnected data processors and their data products. These processors and products are being developed by several institutions and companies, with common definitions for interfaces applied across them. This paper presents the current development and integration status of the European/Canadian EarthCARE level 1 and level 2 data processors for use in the mission end-to-end simulator E3SIM and the Payload Data Ground Segment.