The generation of EarthCARE L1 test data sets using atmospheric model data sets

The Earth Cloud, Aerosol and Radiation Explorer mission (EarthCARE) is a multi-instrument cloud–aerosol–radiation process study mission embarking a high spectral resolution lidar, a cloud profiling radar, a multi-spectral imager, and a three-view broadband radiometer. An important aspect of the EarthCARE mission is its focus on instrument synergy. Many L2 products are the result of L1 inputs from one or more instruments. Since no existing complete observational proxy data sets comprised of co-located and co-temporal “EarthCARE-like” data exists, it has been necessary to create synthetic data sets for the testing and development of various retrieval algorithms and the data processing chain. Given the synergistic nature of the processing chain, it is important that the test data are physically consistent across the various instruments. Within the EarthCARE project, a version of the EarthCARE simulator multi-instrument framework (ECSIM) has been used to create unified realistic test data frames. These simulations have been driven using high-resolution atmospheric model data (described in a companion paper). In this paper, the methods used to create the test data scenes are described. In addition, the simulated L1 data corresponding to each scene are presented and discussed.