Sentinel-5P TROPOMI – Cloud Fraction (CF), Level 3 – Global

The TROPOMI instrument onboard the Copernicus SENTINEL-5 Precursor satellite is a nadir-viewing, imaging spectrometer that provides global measurements of atmospheric properties and constituents on a daily basis. It is contributing to monitoring air quality and climate, providing critical information to services and decision makers.

The instrument uses passive remote sensing techniques by measuring the top of atmosphere solar radiation reflected by and radiated from the earth and its atmosphere. The four spectrometers of TROPOMI cover the ultraviolet (UV), visible (VIS), Near Infra-Red (NIR) and Short Wavelength Infra-Red (SWIR) domains of the electromagnetic spectrum. The operational trace gas products generated at DLR on behave ESA are: Ozone (O3), Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), Sulfur Dioxide (SO2), Formaldehyde (HCHO), Carbon Monoxide (CO) and Methane (CH4), together with clouds and aerosol properties.

Daily observations are binned onto a regular latitude-longitude grid.

This product displays the Cloud Fraction (CF) around the globe. Clouds play a crucial role in the Earth's climate system and have significant effects on trace gas retrievals. The radiometric cloud fraction is retrieved from the UV using the OCRA algorithm.

The DLR INPULS project develops (a) innovative retrieval algorithms and processors for the generation of value-added products from the atmospheric Copernicus missions Sentinel-5 Precursor, Sentinel-4, and Sentinel-5, (b) cloud-based (re)processing systems, (c) improved data discovery and access technologies as well as server-side analytics for the users, and (d) data visualization services.