ASCENDS Mission Goal:
The overall goal of the ASCENDS mission is to use laser measurements of CO2 column absorption to improve our understanding of the global distribution of CO2 sources and sinks.
Working Group Meeting Objectives:
+ Assess the modeling activity to date.
+ Determine which studies still need to occur.
+ Begin drafting requirements for measurements and overall ASCENDS mission.
Meeting Introduction:
This meeting is a follow-on to the workshop held in April 2011 at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Since that time, our ASCENDS working group has conducted various modeling studies to begin to assess implications on flux determinations. These have used satellite constraints on clouds and aerosols and surface reflectivity as well as errors and assumptions in dry air columns. These calculations and simulations are done for cases of lidar observations of CO2 made at 1.57 and 2.06 microns. We will hear more about the status of these activities, and will discuss our understanding of them and whether they are considered complete, or whether more modeling studies are needed.
The new modeling results and discussions will help inform subsequent discussions which focus on developing the ASCENDS mission and measurement requirements, and how those requirements need to be documented. Presentations will be made about how NASA goes about defining mission requirements and how requirements need to be documented. The current expectation is that a NASA Announcement of Opportunity will be used to compete either the ASCENDS instruments or the entire mission.
