Abstract
AbstractThe Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission represents the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) next investment in satellite ocean color and the study of Earth’s ocean–atmosphere system, enabling new insights into oceanographic and atmospheric responses to Earth’s changing climate. PACE objectives include extending systematic cloud, aerosol, and ocean biological and biogeochemical data records, making essential ocean color measurements to further understand marine carbon cycles, food-web processes, and ecosystem responses to a changing climate, and improving knowledge of how aerosols influence ocean ecosystems and, conversely, how ocean ecosystems and photochemical processes affect the atmosphere. PACE objectives also encompass management of fisheries, large freshwater bodies, and air and water quality and reducing uncertainties in climate and radiative forcing models of the Earth system. PACE observations will provide information on radiative properties of land surfaces and characterization of the vegetation and soils that dominate their reflectance. The primary PACE instrument is a spectrometer that spans the ultraviolet to shortwave-infrared wavelengths, with a ground sample distance of 1 km at nadir. This payload is complemented by two multiangle polarimeters with spectral ranges that span the visible to near-infrared region. Scheduled for launch in late 2022 to early 2023, the PACE observatory will enable significant advances in the study of Earth’s biogeochemistry, carbon cycle, clouds, hydrosols, and aerosols in the ocean–atmosphere–land system. Here, we present an overview of the PACE mission, including its developmental history, science objectives, instrument payload, observatory characteristics, and data products.
Highlights
The PACE mission represents National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’s investment in ocean color, cloud, and aerosol data records to enable continued and advanced insight into oceanographic and atmospheric responses to Earth’s changing climate
Its multidisciplinary observations will serve the oceanographic, atmospheric, and terrestrial science communities, building upon a recognition that significant synergies exist between measurement requirements for atmospheric and aquatic ecosystem remote sensing retrievals of geophysical properties
PACE observations will enable continuation of climate research-quality long-term data records established by a diversity of heritage U.S and international Earth-observing satellite missions
Summary
Jeremy; Behrenfeld, Michael J.; Bontempi, Paula S.; Boss, Emmanuel; Cairns, Brian; Davis, Gary T.; Franz, Bryan A.; Gliese, Ulrik B.; Gorman, Eric T.; Hasekamp, Otto; Knobelspiesse, Kirk D.; Mannino, Antonio; Martins, J. The underlying motivation for the mission, has long been to provide advanced observational capabilities enabling a leap forward in AFFILIATIONS: Werdell, Franz, Knobelspiesse, Mannino, Meister, and McClain*—Ocean Ecology Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland; Behrenfeld—Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon; Bontempi—Earth Sciences Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.; Boss—School of Marine Sciences, University of Maine, Orono, Maine; Cairns—Goddard Institute of Space Sciences, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, New York, New York; Davis—Mission Systems Engineering Branch, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland; Gliese—Instrument Projects Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland; Gorman—Systems Engineering Services and Advanced Concepts Branch, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland; Hasekamp—SRON, Netherlands Institute of Space Research, Utrecht, Netherlands; Martins and Remer—Joint Center for Earth.
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