Following completion of the commissioning phase for ESA’s Earth Cloud, Aerosol, and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE) mission, the first set of data products are now openly available.

EarthCARE was launched on 28 May 2024, and is the largest and most complex Earth Explorer to date. It is now starting to provide data to illustrate the intricate interactions between clouds, aerosols and radiation within Earth’s atmosphere.

A joint venture between ESA and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), EarthCARE has four key instruments: an Atmospheric LIDAR (ATLID), a Broadband Radiometer (BBR), a Cloud Profiling Radar (CPR), and a Multispectral Imager (MSI).

The Level-1 data products now available contain fully processed, calibrated, and geolocated measurements acquired by each instrument. These are available to anyone with an account in ESA’s EO Sign In service.

Kajal Haria, Service Manager of the EarthCARE Data, Innovation and Science Cluster (DISC) says, “The EarthCARE DISC operates on behalf of ESA and is responsible for always delivering the best possible quality of mission data to the end-users. Additionally, the service makes sound and harmonised documentation available and communicates the latest mission news in a timely and reliable manner.”

“The DISC service ensures that the end-users can trust the intrinsic quality of the data products, and use them readily. Users can also raise their queries on the data for the specialists within the DISC service to respond to. This two-way channel helps the DISC tailor its operations and activities to evolve the data products in response to the needs of the user community.”

EarthCARE’s Level-1 products in a nutshell

Level-1 products are lower-level products that more directly relate to the original measurements, after corrections and calibration have been applied. EarthCARE’s Level-1 collection contains multiple data products.

These include Level-1b products, which are fully calibrated and geolocated instrument science measurements. At this level, the raw measurements collected by the satellite's instruments have been processed and corrected to ensure accuracy. Calibration means the data have been adjusted to remove instrument errors and converted to standard units, ensuring accuracy and consistency for scientific analysis, and geolocation signifies that each measurement is precisely mapped to its location on Earth. These data provide a clear and reliable view of what the instruments observed, serving as a starting point for scientists to analyse Earth’s energy balance and cloud dynamics.

Other products, such as Level-1d auxiliary products, provide a synergistic spatial grid that can be used by all the instruments to align them to a single shared grid. This makes it easier to compare and use data from multiple instruments simultaneously. On top of that, Level-1d provides meteorological data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). Meteorological parameters, such as temperature, are integral retrieval algorithms, as they help refine EarthCARE’s measurements. Additionally, the context helps scientists understand how the satellite’s observations fit into larger weather and atmospheric patterns.

These and other products are already fuelling research and will contribute to the first batch of EarthCARE scientific results to be presented in this year’s ESA Living Planet Symposium, happening in June 2025.

What’s next for EarthCARE data?

Level-2 EarthCARE products are higher-level data products that provide derived cloud, aerosols and radiative properties, based on the calibrated Level-1 products. Currently, access to these products is restricted to the Commissioning Team and Cal/Val (Calibration and Validation) users.

Products using data from single instruments (Level-2a) will be openly released in March 2025, and products using data from multiple instruments (Level-2b) will be openly released in the second half of 2025.

Gerd-Jan van Zadelhoff, Project Manager of the EarthCARE DISC, shares his insight into what the Level-2 products will offer, “EarthCARE Level-2 data offer a vital opportunity to explore the complex interplay between clouds, aerosols, and Earth's energy balance. Clouds play a fundamental role in shaping our climate, balancing cooling and warming effects depending on their type and interaction with aerosols. With its advanced processing chain, EarthCARE provides unique and detailed datasets to address key uncertainties in how these processes influence incoming solar and outgoing thermal radiation.

“These long-anticipated data products are the result of over a decade of dedicated work by the Level-2 processing team, offering critical insights into cloud-aerosol-radiation interactions — insights that are essential for improving climate projections.”

Why do EarthCARE's data matter?

Even though clouds play a big role in atmospheric heating and cooling, they remain one of the major mysteries in our understanding of how the atmosphere drives the climate system. It is therefore important for climate research and weather prediction that we improve our understanding and modelling of clouds, and their interaction to aerosols and radiation. Scientists will use EarthCARE’s data to study how clouds and aerosols affect the weather and climate. The information that EarthCARE provides will also greatly improve models of the atmosphere, which are important for weather predictions. Additionally, data from EarthCARE are foreseen to extend the record of missions such as Aeolus, CALIPSO, CloudSat, GPM, CERES and GERB, and prepare the path for missions such as Aeolus-2, AOS and Libera that are due to launch in the coming decade.

Find out more about EarthCARE products using the EarthCARE Product Data Handbook.

A list of all ESA EarthCARE products is provided in the EarthCARE ESA Product List document.