Simulated datasets that are representative of the spatial and temporal resolution of the trace gas and aerosol products from the TEMPO mission are being developed for the Early Adopter community. Different chemical transport models are being used to generate the “fast” proxy trace gas products, including the realistic Goddard Earth Observing System Model Nature Run (GEOS-NR) from July 2013 – June 2014 and March – June 2016 and GEOS Composition Forecasting (GEOS-CF) model from post-2017 to current day. The “fast” proxy products account for the sensitivity, physics, and uncertainties associated with the trace gas retrievals. Proxy aerosol data are also being derived from current remote sensing observations.
Proxy datasets are provided to the Early Adopter community in NetCDF-4 format following the file structure of the planned operational data. Additional file formats will be distributed based on a needs assessment of early adopters. The goal of the proxy TEMPO data is to enhance end user engagements and applications during the pre-launch era of the mission and, as a result, maximize use of operational TEMPO data for societal benefit after launch.
The animation below - produced using the NO2 tropospheric vertical column density (VCD) from the TEMPO proxy product - shows an approximate representation of how TEMPO will perform hourly and sub-hourly scans after launch on a typical day in August.
