Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) global satellite observations of atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane

Carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) are important atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHG) and, therefore, classified as Essential Climate Variables (ECVs). Previously, satellite-derived atmospheric CO2 and methane CH4 ECV data sets have been generated and made available via the GHG-CCI project of the European Space Agency's (ESA) Climate Change Initiative (CCI, http://www.esa-ghg-cci.org/). The latest GHG-CCI data set, Climate Research Data Package No. 4 (CRDP 4), covers the time period 2003-2015 and is available since February 2017. Currently, the production and provision of these data sets is being continued (pre-)operationally via the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S, https://climate.copernicus.eu/), which is implemented by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) on behalf of the European Commission. The C3S satellite GHG sub-project (C3S_312a_Lot6) is led by University of Bremen supported by University of Leicester (UK), SRON (The Netherlands) and CNRS-LMD (France). The first Climate Data Record (CDR) data set produced and delivered within the C3S framework covers the time period 2003-2016 and consists of column-average dry-air mole fraction CO2 and CH4 products, i.e., XCO2 and XCH4, from SCIAMACHY/ENVISAT and TANSO-FTS/GOSAT. Furthermore, mid-tropospheric CO2 and CH4 mixing ratios from IASI Metop-A and Metop-B are part of this data set. It is planned to extend this data set each year by one additional year. The data products are available via the Climate Data Store (CDS) of C3S. Here a short overview about this new Earth Observation data set is presented.