Search

The Earth Cloud, Aerosol and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE) satellite mission is expected to provide new insights into aerosols, clouds, and radiation. The satellite's payload includes four instruments designed to synergistically retrieve vertical profiles of clouds and aerosols, along with the atmospheric radiation data. This will enable the determination of atmospheric heating rates and top-of-atmosphere radiances and fluxes. This paper focuses on the BMA-FLX processor, specifically created, developed, and validated to retrieve thermal and solar top-of-atmosphere radiative fluxes from longwave and shortwave radiances, measured along track by the EarthCARE Broad-Band Radiometer (BBR) instrument. These radiances are co-registered either at the surface or, in cloudy conditions, at the radiatively most significant vertical layer of the atmosphere (reference level). The Multi-Spectral Imager (MSI) and Atmospheric Lidar (ATLID) on board EarthCARE support cloud identification, while meteorological data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts provide the surface and atmospheric necessary information. In the BMA-FLX processor, flux is estimated independently for each BBR view using different approaches for the longwave and shortwave radiances. A combined flux, derived from co-registered radiances at the reference level, is provided as the best estimate for a given scene. The radiance-to-flux conversion algorithms have been successfully validated through end-to-end verification using L1 and L2 synthetic data for three EarthCARE orbits. In general, a good agreement is found between the retrieved fluxes and the model truth, with root mean square errors (RMSEs) varying between 7 and 18 W m−2 for the solar fluxes and lower than 6 W m−2 for the thermal fluxes. The BMA-FLX's objective is to achieve radiative closure for EarthCARE with solar and thermal fluxes within 10 W m−2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The methodology to determine the unfiltered solar and thermal radiances from the measured EarthCARE Broadband Radiometer (BBR) shortwave (SW) and total-wave (TW) filtered radiances is presented. Within the EarthCARE ground processing, the correction for the effect of the BBR spectral responses, the unfiltering, is performed by the so-called BM-RAD processor which produces the level-2 BM-RAD product. The BM-RAD product refers to unfiltered broadband radiances that are derived from the BBR and the Multi-Spectral Imager (MSI) instruments on board the forthcoming EarthCARE satellite. The method is based on theoretical regressions between filtered and unfiltered radiances, as is done for the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) and the Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget (GERB) instruments. The regressions are derived from a large geophysical database of spectral radiance curves simulated using radiative transfer models. Based on the radiative transfer computations, the unfiltering error, i.e., the error introduced by the small spectral variations of the BBR instrument response, is expected to remain well below 0.5 % in the shortwave (SW) and 0.1 % in the longwave (LW), at 1 standard deviation. These excellent performances are permitted by the very simple optics used in the BBR instrument: a telescope with a single paraboloid mirror. End-to-end verification of the unfiltering algorithm has been performed by running the BM-RAD processor on modelled level-1 BBR radiances obtained for three EarthCARE orbits simulated by an integrated forecasting and data assimilation system. The resulting unfiltered radiances are eventually compared to the solar and thermal radiances derived by radiative transfer simulations over the three EarthCARE orbits. In addition, this end-to-end verification has provided further evidence on the high accuracy of the unfiltered radiance process, with accuracies better than 0.5 % for SW and better than 0.1 % for LW. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The methodology to determine the unfiltered solar and thermal radiances from the measured EarthCARE BBR shortwave (SW) and totalwave (TW) filtered radiances is presented. Within the EarthCARE ground processing, the correction for the effect of the BBR spectral responses, the unfiltering, is performed by the so-called BM-RAD processor which produces the level 2 BM-RAD product. The BM-RAD product refers to unfiltered broadband radiances that are derived from the BBR and the Multi-Spectral Imager (MSI) instruments onboard of the forthcoming EarthCARE satellite. The method is based on theoretical regressions between filtered and unfiltered radiances, as is done for the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) and the Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget (GERB) instruments. The regressions are derived from a large geophysical database of spectral radiance curves simulated using radiative transfer models. Based on the radiative transfer computations, the unfiltering error, i.e., the error introduced by the small spectral variations of the BBR instrument response, is expected to remain well below 0.5% in the shortwave (SW) and 0.1% in the longwave (LW), at 1 standard deviation. These excellent performances are permitted by the very simple optics used in the BBR instrument: a telescope with a single paraboloid mirror. End-to-end verification of the unfiltering algorithm has been performed by running the BM-RAD processor on modeled Level 1 BBR radiances obtained for three EarthCARE orbits simulated by an integrated forecasting and data assimilation system. The resulting unfiltered radiances are eventually compared to the solar and thermal radiances derived by radiative transfer simulations over the three EarthCARE orbits. In addition, this end-to-end verification has provided further evidence on the high accuracy of the unfiltered radiance process, with accuracies better than 0.5% for SW and better than 0.1% for LW. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The identification of a genomic region designated by a open reading frame in the genome of Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1, encodes a product that is involved in the catabolic pathway of choline and demethylation of glycine betaine to N,N-dimethylglycine.

Introduction: The potential impact of targeting different components of an adverse lipid profile in populations with multiple cardiovascular risk factors is not completely clear. This study aims to assess the association between different components of the standard lipid profile with all-cause mortality and hospitalization due to cardiovascular events in a high-risk population. Methods: This prospective registry included high risk adults over 30 years old free of cardiovascular disease (2008–2012). Diagnosis of hypertension, dyslipidemia or diabetes mellitus was inclusion criterion. Lipid biomarkers were evaluated. Primary endpoints were all-cause mortality and hospital admission due to coronary heart disease or stroke. We estimated adjusted rate ratios (aRR), absolute risk differences and population attributable risk associated with adverse lipid profiles. Results: 51,462 subjects were included with a mean age of 62.6 years (47.6% men). During an average follow-up of 3.2 years, 919 deaths, 1666 hospitalizations for coronary heart disease and 1510 hospitalizations for stroke were recorded. The parameters that showed an increased rate for total mortality, coronary heart disease and stroke hospitalization were, respectively, low HDL-Cholesterol: aRR 1.25, 1.29 and 1.23; high Total/HDL-Cholesterol: aRR 1.22, 1.38 and 1.25; and high Triglycerides/HDL-Cholesterol: aRR 1.21, 1.30, 1.09. The parameters that showed highest population attributable risk (%) were, respectively, low HDL-Cholesterol: 7.70, 11.42, 8.40; high Total/HDL-Cholesterol: 6.55, 12.47, 8.73; and high Triglycerides/HDL-Cholesterol: 8.94, 15.09, 6.92. Conclusions: In a population with cardiovascular risk factors, HDL-cholesterol, Total/HDL-cholesterol and triglycerides/HDL-cholesterol ratios were associated with a higher population attributable risk for cardiovascular disease compared to other common biomarkers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]