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Overview and Status of the Methane Remote Sensing Lidar Mission: MERLIN

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Proceedings of the 30th International Laser Radar Conference (ILRC 2022)

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Abstract

The Methane Remote Sensing Lidar Mission (MERLIN) aims at global observations of spatial and temporal gradients of atmospheric methane (CH4) using spaceborne active measurements based on an integrated path differential absorption (IPDA) nadir-viewing lidar instrument. It is a joint French and German space mission which is currently in its phase D with a planned launch date in 2027. The main scientific goal of the mission is to provide the column-integrated dry-air mixing ratio of CH4 (XCH4) for all latitudes and for all seasons of the year with very small systematic errors. These precise spaceborne data will enable to significantly improve our knowledge of CH4 sources especially in regions like the tropics and high latitudes where data is still sparse compared to other regions of the world.

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References

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Acknowledgments

The German MERLIN contribution is being granted by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action under grant number 50EP1601.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. DLR Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany

    Sabrina G. Arnold, Gerhard Ehret, Andreas Fix & Martin Wirth

  2. DLR German Space Agency, Bonn, Germany

    Matthias Alpers

  3. Centre National D’Etudes Spatiales, Toulouse, France

    Caroline Bès & Bruno Millet

  4. Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, Gif sur Yvette, France

    Philippe Bousquet

  5. Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique, Palaiseau, France

    Cyril Crevoisier

Authors
  1. Sabrina G. Arnold
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  2. Gerhard Ehret
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  3. Matthias Alpers
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  4. Caroline Bès
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  5. Philippe Bousquet
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  6. Cyril Crevoisier
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  7. Andreas Fix
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  8. Bruno Millet
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  9. Martin Wirth
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sabrina G. Arnold .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA

    John T. Sullivan

  2. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Thierry Leblanc

  3. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, CO, USA

    Sara Tucker

  4. Department of Physics, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Belay Demoz

  5. Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Wisconsin‑Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Edwin Eloranta

  6. NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA, USA

    Chris Hostetler

  7. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Hino-shi, Tokyo, Japan

    Shoken Ishii

  8. Institute of Methodologies for Environmental Analysis, National Research Council of Italy (CNR), Potenza, Italy

    Lucia Mona

  9. Department of Electrical Engineering, The City College of New York, New York, NY, USA

    Fred Moshary

  10. School of Applied Mathematical and Physical Sciences, National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece

    Alexandros Papayannis

  11. Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, USA

    Krishna Rupavatharam

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© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

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Arnold, S.G. et al. (2023). Overview and Status of the Methane Remote Sensing Lidar Mission: MERLIN. In: Sullivan, J.T., et al. Proceedings of the 30th International Laser Radar Conference. ILRC 2022. Springer Atmospheric Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37818-8_86

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