AURORA

Simulated data from the Sentinel-4 and Sentinel-5 missions are used to determine (tropospheric) ozone and UV dosimetry.

AURORA is a space research project funded by the European Community‘s H2020 programme in the field of Earth Observation. The project was launched on 1 February 2016, with a 36-month duration. AURORA’s overall objective is to use the different tools of the Sentinel-4 and Sentinel-5 missions of the Copernicus programme to monitor the profile of ozone in the atmosphere with unprecedented accuracy. In particular, it covers the lower layers of the atmosphere over Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, where ozone action acts as a pollutant and as a greenhouse gas.

The project will use innovative methods to combine the information measured by the various tools, short-term forecasting models, a web-GIS that will allow access to data and a database with state of the art techniques for big-data management. This combination will stimulate development of innovative downstream applications with high commercial potential.

The project will develop two examples of commercial applications in the field of preventive health care, based on near real time monitoring and on short-term forecasts of ozone pollution. The first deals with ozone pollution in the lower troposphere and in the boundary layer and the second with dosimetry of UV radiation.