Overview of the MAGIC initiative for GHG and future plans

Abstract

The MAGIC initiative has been put in place in 2017. MAGIC stands for: Monitoring of Atmospheric composition and Greenhouse gases through multi-Instruments Campaigns (https://magic.aeris-data.fr). Its objectives are twofold: to better understand atmospheric distribution and emissions of CH4, CO2 and related variables and to validate current space missions dedicated to anthropogenic greenhouse gases (e.g. OCO-2, GOSAT-2, S5P, IASI) and prepare future ones (e.g. Merlin, MicroCarb, IASI-NG). To achieve these objectives, the initiative relies on the combination of annual campaigns combining ground-based, airborne (aircraft, balloon) and satellite observations as well as the development of network measurements (AirCore-France and the French COCOON consortium). The MAGIC initiative now gathers more than a dozen European teams. Here, we will present the results achieved since 2017 and the plans for the near future. We will focus on the 3 annual campaigns that took place in various places in France in 2018, 2019 and 2020 which allowed the comparison of various instruments aiming at measuring either atmospheric profiles of GHG concentrations (AirCore, Amulse, Falcon20) or weighted columns (EM27/SUN, CHRIS, TCCON). Several colocations with OCO-2, Sentinel-5P and IASI allowed validating level 2 products, as well as highlighting the impact of spectroscopy on the retrieved GHG weighted-columns, and studying local spatio-temporal variations. We will briefly describe the plans for the 2 upcoming annual campaigns. MAGIC2021 will take in place in August in Northern-Sweden with the main objective of studying natiral and anthropogenic emissions of CH4 and CO2 at high latitudes. It will see an original combination of DLR CHARM-F CH4 and CO2 lidar together with the LIVE wind lidar from ONERA flying together onboard SAFIRE ATR42 to provide direct measurement of fluxes, and will build on CNES annual stratospheric balloon campaign in Kiruna. MAGIC2022 will aim at studying anthropogenic emissions of a middle-size European city by surrounding it with dozens of ground-based and airborne instruments, The MAGIC initiative is supported by CNES, CNRS, ESA, EUMETSAT, as well as Ecole polytechnique, CEA, Météo-France and the Universities of Versaille-Saint-Quentin, Lille, Reims and Sorbonne.