IASI on Metop-A: Operational Level 2 retrievals after five years in orbit

Geophysical parameters from the IASI instrument on Metop-A are essential products provided from EUMETSAT's Central Facility in near real time. They include vertical profiles of temperature and humidity, related cloud information, surface emissivity and temperature, and atmospheric composition parameters (CO, ozone and several other trace gases). As compared to previous operational processor versions, the latest processor version 5 delivers significant improvements in retrieval performance for most major products. These include improvements to cloud properties products, cloud detection (with a positive impact on the knowledge of the sea surface temperature, SST), the temperature profile (especially in the mid and upper troposphere), and ozone and carbon monoxide total columns.This paper provides a comprehensive summary of the processing algorithms, the latest scientific developments, and the related validation studies and activities. It concludes with a discussion of the future outlook.

► Operational IASI level 2 processor description and validation. ► Improved temperature profile retrievals. ► Improved cloud detection and characterisation. ► Improved surface parameters retrieval. ► Atmospheric composition: CO and O3 total columns are operational.