OUR OBJECTIVES
DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE ARES INFRASTRUCTURE
ARES is being implemented in two parallel activities:
a) Design and acquisition of new hardware and software to build up the ARES infrastructure
b) Remote sensing and Earth System Science efforts are continuing using existing data at the participating institutes to further our knowledge and prepare for the data captured by ARES instruments.
a) Design and acquisition of new hardware and software to build up the ARES infrastructure
b) Remote sensing and Earth System Science efforts are continuing using existing data at the participating institutes to further our knowledge and prepare for the data captured by ARES instruments.
The APEX (Airborne Prism Experiment) and AVIRIS-ng sensors are flying operationally to avoid data gaps for our long-term research sites.
COMPRISING AIRBORNE SENSORS
ARES aims to integrate three or more complementary instruments to characterise the Earth System.
The goal is the fly the full sensor package on a single aircraft for simultaneous data collection.
The goal is the fly the full sensor package on a single aircraft for simultaneous data collection.
An imaging spectrometer developed in collaboration with NASA/JPL covers the solar reflective spectrum.
A full waveform LIDAR captures structural and topographical information.
A high resolution photogrammetric camera allows the derivation of textural data.
PROCESSING AND STORAGE SEGMENTS FOR THE PAYLOADS
Each payload will require their specialised processing chain to transform data into physical units with known geolocations.
Data storage with extensive metadata support is a further key component to enable long-term use and sharing within the Earth System Science community.
Data storage with extensive metadata support is a further key component to enable long-term use and sharing within the Earth System Science community.
EARTH SYSTEM MODELS PARAMETERISED BY ARES SENSOR DATA
The complementary information collected by the ARES sensor package enables the detailed parameterisation of Earth System models. Varying the flight levels will allow to capture datasets at native resolutions and compare results of scaling models.
In this manner, ARES can be used to simulate, validate and calibrate satellite based missions.
In this manner, ARES can be used to simulate, validate and calibrate satellite based missions.
ARES will deliver scientific benefits and Earth system data and predictions beyond the scientific community to a wide range of decision makers in public policy, environmental and natural resource managers, natural disaster, and risk managers. This includes characterizing and predicting the evolution of the Earth system in response to urgent societal needs and its global change drivers.
Increasingly, gap-filling missions are emerging and in future the ARES infrastructure is to support the development of missions capable of filling the current existing spatio-temporal observational gap. ARES members are contributing to current and future missions (Copernicus Sentinel-1, and -2; NASA Decadal Survey Mission HyspIRI, NASA Earth Venture Proposal for the ISS on ‘Linnaeus’, NASA Earth System Science Pathfinder GEDI (Global Ecosystems Dynamic Investigation LiDAR), FLEX Fluorescence Explorer, etc.), securing the continuation of the observational approach at regional scales.
The final goal of ARES is to a) address existing key gaps related to scaling issues using observations of the Earth System, b) contribute to methodological development minimizing these gaps, and c) propose future, intermediate class, space-borne missions allowing a more synoptic assessment of the aforementioned gaps.
Airborne research has increasingly gained in importance over the past few years. The ARES infrastructure will fill an important gap between in-situ and space-based observations.