Scientific Service for Fiducial Reference Measurements for Aerosol Product Cal/Val Activities (FRM4AER)

The Fiducial Reference Measurements (FRM) are a suite of independent, fully characterised, and traceable ground measurements that follow the guidelines outlined by the GEO/CEOS Quality Assurance framework for Earth Observation (QA4EO). According the QA4EO website, "QA4EO is driven by the key principle that all measurements/processes must have associated quality indicators (QIs) based on documented evidence of traceability to reference standards agreed by the scientific community". The Scientific Service is focused on Aerosol Product Cal/Val Activities. The aim of this study is to set up and maintain a fiducial reference database for aerosol measurements in line with the current needs being driven by all the current and future Near Real Time (NRT) aerosol retrievals provided by EUMETSAT. There exists a wealth of data and algorithms of potential use for this purpose. In this section we will describe the ones we consider more relevant for the Service, as they constitute state-of-the-art observations and algorithms, are available for the intended use and have the potential to serve and also benefit from the Service outputs