PI: V. Amiridis (NOA)

Start date: 02/02/2023

Duration: 18 months

Funding: European Space Agency (ESA)

Total Budget: 384,999.04 €           IAASARS-NOA Budget: 117,661.20 €

The ACPV project is coordinated by the National Observatory of Athens (ΝΟΑ/IAASARS). It aims at establishing common validation practices for space-based profilers, specifically for aerosol, cloud, and precipitation profiles. It focuses on developing a suborbital data conversion tool for radar, identifying knowledge gaps in validation practices, conducting studies on historical datasets, and promoting the implementation of best practices. The project collaborates with the Implementation Monitoring Group (IMG) and other ESA contracts and seeks to contribute to NASA, JAXA, and EUMETSAT efforts. Ultimately, it aims to provide a validated protocol endorsed as a CEOS best practice.

PI: V. Amiridis (NOA)

Start date: 01/11/2022

Duration: 24 months

Funding: European Space Agency (ESA)

Total Budget: 350,000.00 € IAASARS Budget: 205,983.00 €

The L2A+ project aims at developing a refined Aeolus L2A aerosol product (L2A+), and test its applications for enhancing aerosol research, and contributing to existing climate datasets. Furthermore, L2A+ aims at assessing the impact of the novel L2A+ product on aerosol assimilation, towards improved dust transport modelling and for further enhancing NWP. The main foreseen outcomes include the (1) development of a refined Aeolus aerosol optical product (L2A+), (2) examination of the impact of L2A and L2A+ on aerosol assimilation and dust transport models, (3) assessment of the impact of Aeolus on NWP, through L2A+ aerosol assimilation, (4) highlight of the benefit of the Aeolus joint aerosol and wind assimilation for simulating dust deposition fields, and (5) the integration of the monthly averaged L2A+ product in climatological databases such as the ESA-LIVAS long-term climate dataset.

PI: Eleni Marinou

Start date: 01/10/2021

Duration: 36 months

Funding: European Union’s Horizon Europe –  WIDENING: TWINNING

Total Budget: 1,499,905.00 € IAASARS Budget: 953,750.00 €

The PANGEA4CalVal Twinning project will build a framework of knowledge, R&I and management capacity upon PANGEA observatory and to establish it as a Centre for Earth Observation (EO) and satellite Calibration/Validation (Cal/ Val) in the Mediterranean region. The project will apply a comprehensive set of activities to transfer know-how from advanced partners in Europe, aiming to fill the identified knowledge gaps and fulfil the project objectives. PANGEA4CalVal will develop an open-access framework for PANGEA, with the mandate to bring together academia, industry, regional authorities and the civil society, to transform R&I capacities into socioeconomic benefits for the region and the EU.

PI: Eleni Marinou

Start date: 01/10/2021

Duration: 24 months

Funding: Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (H.F.R.I.)

Total Budget: 94,799.00 € IAASARS Budget: 94,799.00 €

REVEAL aims to study and understand the aerosol-cloud interactions in mixed-phased clouds in the understudied region of Eastern Mediterranean, utilizing advanced synergies of ground-based and satellite remote sensing along with airborne in-situ observations. Special focus will be given on primary and secondary ice nucleation mechanisms under different aerosol and meteorological conditions. REVEAL will address this challenging task by combining an unprecedented observational dataset of aerosol, cloud, wind and meteorological parameters along with advanced cloud-resolving numerical simulations.

PI: N. Kontos

CO-PI: V. Amiridis (NOA)

Start date: 04/08/2022

Duration: 17 months

Funding: ATTICA 2014-2020

Total Budget: 400,000.00 € IAASARS Budget: 150,000.00 €

The main goal of the PM-EYE project the development of an integrated monitoring and forecasting system for particle pollution for the Prefecture of Attica, focusing on the city of Athens. The system will be based on the open-source data of the Copernicus CAMS (Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service) service and remote sensing monitoring methods using lidar technology. The remote sensing data will be used for the improvement of the quality of the CAMS results, using advanced downscaling and assimilation techniques in selected areas of interest in the Prefecture of Attica (e.g. the city of Athens).

PI: A. Dabas

CO-PI: V. Amiridis      

Start date: 01/11/2021

Duration: 16 months

Funding: European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT)

Total Budget: 94,950.00 €                  IAASARS Budget: 41,000.00 €

The ADD-CROSS project addresses the importance of implementing the Aeolus missing cross-polar channel for future Doppler Wind Lidar (DWL) instruments in preparation at EUMETSAT. This will be achieved, by providing a reconstruction of Aeolus-like optical products (355 nm - w/wo cross-channel) based on CALIPSO and by assimilating the ADD-CROSS aerosol backscatter coefficient products in the ECMWF’s 4D-VAR system. The main expected outcomes include (1) quantification of the impact of the Aeolus missing cross-polar channel in NWP and (2) the effect of linear vs. circular emission configurations under different polarization scenarios.

PI: V. Amiridis
Start date: 01/07/2022
Duration: 36 months

Funding: Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (H.F.R.I.)

Total Budget: 191,999.00€              IAASARS Budget: 191,999.00€

StratoFIRE aims to provide the necessary breakthroughs in our understanding of properties, lifetime and impact of smoke particles in the stratosphere and climate by utilizing satellite sensors (CALIPSO, AEOLUS), ground measurements from EU RIs (ACTRIS), and retrievals of smoke optical and physical properties from the PANGEA Observatory. Additionaly, the effect of stratospheric smoke on atmospheric circulation, chemistry, radiation balance and climate are assessed, using numerical climate models

PI: A. Benedetti – ECMWF
CO-PI: V. Amiridis
Start date: 15/09/2021
Duration: 24 months

Funding: European Space Agency

Total Budget: 600,000.00 € IAASARS Budget: 130,000.00 €

The main goal of the DOMOS project is to bring together novel observations
(satellite, in situ, citizen data) with state-of-the-art models to provide a full 4D
reconstruction of the ocean/atmosphere sea-air-land system, its different
components, process and interactions, including aspects that are not directly
observable, to address major scientific challenges and related societal needs.

PI: V. Amiridis
Start date: 01/04/2021
Duration: 18 months

Funding: European Research Council (ERC) Proof of Concept 2020

Total Budget: 150,000.00 € IAASARS Budget: 150,000.00 €

Building on the technology solutions developed within the D-TECT ERC CoG, PM-
scanner aims to fix the existing air quality monitoring networks that have either very low spatial resolution or low accuracy by commercializing the "PM-scanner", a remote sensing instrument which will monitor particulate matter (PM) concentration over large areas with unprecedented accuracy and high spatial and temporal resolution.

PI: A. Gkikas
Advisory Board: V. Amiridis
Start date: 01/04/2021
Duration: 36 months

Funding: H.F.R.I. Research Projects to support Postdoctoral Researchers

Total Budget: 189,547.00€ IAASARS Budget: 189,547.00€

ATLANTAS aims to fill the gaps in our understanding associated with the interaction of anthropogenic versus natural aerosols with climate. This frontier project will pioneer an attempt at achieving this decomposition by exploiting the great new insights coming from space with active remote sensing synergies. The scientific objectives of ATLANTAS include:

• a discrimination and full characterization of different natural and anthropogenic aerosol types harnessing space-borne observations, 
• a novel investigation of anthropogenic versus natural aerosol climatic effects and 
• an investigation of potential co-variation of essential
  climate variables (e.g., near-surface temperature) and aerosol-induced radiative effects.

PI: L. Mona – CNR-IMAA
CO-PI: V. Amiridis
Start date: 01/01/2021
Duration: 12 months

Funding: ECMWF Copernicus Procurement

Total Budget: € 264,252.06 € IAASARS Budget: 22,000.00 €

CAMS21b aims to design, test and set up the provisioning to CAMS of quality
controlled ACTRIS/EARLINET products in Real Real Time/Near Real Time. The
activities will be focused on the automatic centralized data processing and data
provision, ensuring the full traceability of the products from the data acquisition
level up to the final quality-controlled data level. The system for automatic data
processing and provision will be firstly designed, then developed and tested on a first test station and finally implemented for a group of 9 stations representative of the whole network in terms.

PI: V. Amiridis
Start date: 10/12/2020
Duration: 18 months

Funding: European Space Agency

Total Budget: 149,995.20€ IAASARS Budget: 109,998.34€

NEWTON aims to demonstrate the potential improvement of short-term dust
forecasts when Aeolus wind observations are assimilated in regional numerical
simulations performed by the WRF-Version 4.0 (research mode) and WRF-CHEM
(operational) models in Tropical Atlantic Ocean-W. Sahara and Eastern
Mediterranean

PI: V. Amiridis
Start date: 20/11/2020
Duration: 22 months

Funding: European Space Agency

Total Budget: 249,997.93€ IAASARS Budget: 126,000€

In the framework of the ESA-Aeolus Cal/Val activities, ESA aims for the
implementation of a tropical campaign with its base in Cape Verde that comprises of ground-based activities, as well as airborne components. The objective of the ASKOS activity is to provide to the tropical campaign the necessary ground-based support to the ESA-Aeolus mission, regarding the calibration and validation of its products, to improve the quality of the data and to assess their random error and the biases.

PI: V. Amiridis
Start date: 01/10/2020
Duration: 16 months

Funding: European Space Agency PRODEX

Total Budget: 84,176.90€ IAASARS Budget: 84,176.90€

In CORAL Aeolus data are assimilated in regional scale atmospheric models, using a combination of Aeolus data with relevant satellite products for SST and biological
ocean activity that will lead in more conclusive results regarding the particular
mechanisms that are involved in the production of open sea marine particles.

PI: N. Kontos, Co-PI: V. Amiridis
Start date: 18/06/2019

Duration: 15 months
Funding: European Space Agency
Total Budget: 499,658.14€ IAASARS Budget: 10,037.50€
The objective of the ESA-EVE project is to provide the upcoming ESA missions of
Aeolus (and later also EarthCARE), with a well characterized, flexible, mobile
reference ground-based lidar system, tailored to the specifics of ALADIN (and also
ATLID), thus capable of providing well-characterized “ground truth” observations.

PI: V. Amiridis
Start date: 01/05/2019
Duration: 36 months

Funding: STAVROS NIARCHOS FOUNDATION

Total Budget: 700.000,00€ IAASARS Budget: 700.000,00€

The objective of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) donation is to provide
financial support to the initiative of the National Observatory of Athens (NOA) of
establishing and operating the PANhellenic GEophysical observatory of Antikythera (PANGEA) according to the standards defined by the Global Atmosphere Watch of the World Meteorological Organization (GAW/WMO). Through this initiative and the SNF grant, NOA will address a number of its scientific and societal objectives related to challenges such as the climate change and its impact on severe weather and natural disasters in Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean.

PI: V.Amiridis
Start date: 01/03/2019
Duration: 24 months

Funding: European Space Agency (ESA)

Total Budget: 60.000,00€ IAASARS Budget: 10.000,00€

The main scientific objectives of A-CARE are derived from the scientific objectives of EarthCARE. EarthCARE aims at improving our understanding of aerosol/cloud interactions on the global scale by providing accurate vertical distributions of key aerosol and cloud properties, in order to assess their impact on the Earth’s radiative budget and climate.

PI: V. Amiridis
Start date: 02/10/2018
Duration: 12 months

Funding: PRACE - Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe

Total Budget: 35M CPU core hours IAASARS Budget: 35M CPU core hours

The SODust project aims at quantifying the scattering properties of large, irregularly-shaped desert dust particles, oriented due to triboelectrification processes within the dust cloud, using the Discrete Dipole Approximation (DDA) method while considering irregular-shaped particles with different aspect ratios.

PI: N. Michalopoulos – ΝΟΑ
CO-PI: V. Amiridis
Start date: 26/09/2018
Duration: 36 months

Funding: Operational Programme "Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and
Innovation" (NSRF 2014-2020) and co-financed by Greece and the European Union (European Regional Development Fund).

Total Budget: 3.000.000,00€ IAASARS Budget: 290.549,36€

The PANhellenic infrastructure for Atmospheric Composition and climatE change
(PANACEA) is envisioned to become the high-class, integrated Research
Infrastructure (RI) for atmospheric composition and climate change not only for
Greece, but also for southern Europe and eastern Mediterranean, an area that is
acknowledged as a hot spot for climate change. The overarching goal of PANACEA is the integration of all existing national facilities to create a single harmonized high-class innovative distributed RI to serve and provide access to all academic/research institutions and the private sector (industry/SMEs) in the wide scientific range covered by PANACEA. IAASARS participates in PANACEA since 2017 with the PANGEA Climate Change Observatory of Antikythera.

PI: V. Amiridis
Start date: 31/7/2018
Duration: 35 months

Funding: Operational Programme Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation 2014-2020 (EPAnEK)

Total Budget: 636.215,00€ IAASARS Budget: 120.470,00€

CHARISM aims to develop the first commercially available novel High Spectral
Resolution Lidar (HSRL) in order to make the technology available to a wider
audience. HSRLs are state-of-the-art instrument, providing high quality aerosol
measurements used for research, air-quailty studies, and satellite validation.

PI: V. Amiridis
Start date: 01/09/2017
Duration: 60 months

Funding: European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant 2016, H2020-EU.1.1., Excellent Science, Project ID: 725698

Total Budget: 1.968.000,00€ IAASARS Budget: 1.968.000,00€

D-TECT aims to parameterize the physical mechanisms responsible for dust
triboelectrification, assess the impact of electrification on dust settling, quantify the

climatic impacts of the process, particularly the effect on the dust size evolution
during transport, on dry deposition and on CCN/IN reservoirs, and the effect of the electric field on particle orientation and on radiative transfer.

PI: V. Amiridis
Start date: 01/11/2016
Duration: 36 months

Donation: STAVROS NIARCHOS FOUNDATION

Total Budget: 500.000,00€ IAASARS Budget: 264.000,00€

This action aims to support the operation and sustainability of the National Center of Excellence for EO-based monitoring of Natural Disasters (NCEON) of NOA for the
next three years, including the upgrade and maintenance of the infrastructure and
the employment of young researchers to support operations.

PI: V. Amiridis
Start date: 01/01/2016
Duration: 24 months

Funding: HORIZON 2020, The EU Framework Programme for Research and
Innovation under grant agreement No 692014.

Total Budget: 1.000.000,00€ IAASARS Budget: 179.980,00€

ECARS addresses the challenges of the Twinning programme by tackling deficiencies and networking gaps between INOE and internationally-leading counterparts at EU level. The overarching objective of the ECARS project is to boost INOE’s research capacity in the domain of atmospheric remote sensing and create a pole of excellence in East Europe.

PI: V. Amiridis
Start date: 15/01/2015
Duration: 26 months

Funding: European Space Agency (ESA)

Total Budget: 150.000,00€ IAASARS Budget: 90.000,00€

Dedicate aims at delivering spectral conversion factors for the lidar linear
depolarization ratio between 355 and 532 nm in order to convert CALIPSO
observations (532 nm) to EarthCARE-related observations (355 nm).

PI: V. Amiridis
Start date: 14/10/2014
Duration: 60 months

Funding: European Space Agency (ESA)

Total Budget: 4.000.000,00€ IAASARS Budget: 227.000,00€

MULTIPLY, is an ESA-ESTEC project which proposes the development of a novel
multi-wavelength HSRL system (3b + 2a + 3d) for airborne operation. The MULTIPLY lidar will deliver the aerosol extinction and backscatter coefficient profiles at three wavelengths (355, 532 and 1064 nm), as well as profiles of aerosol intensive parameters.

PI: V. Amiridis
Start date: 15/05/2014
Duration: 10 months

Funding: European Space Agency (ESA)

Total Budget: 50.000,00€ IAASARS Budget: 50.000,00€

The CHARADMExp campaign aims to derive optical, microphysical and chemical
properties of marine component and its mixture with dust, employing sophisticated
instrumentation installed on an appropriate site. Specifically, aerosol
characterization will be established by ground-based active/passive remote sensing
techniques, surface in-situ measurements and airborne UAV observations.

PI: V. Amiridis
Start date: 01/01/2014
Duration: 27 months

Funding: FP7-SPACE-2013-1 under grant agreement No 606953.

Total Budget: 1.997.414,00€ IAASARS Budget: 110.178,43€

Marco Polo aims to use European and Chinese expertise to improve air quality
monitoring, modelling and forecasting over China by improving emission database
using satellite data with a focus on emission estimates from space and their
refinement for anthropogenic and biogenic sources through spatial downscaling and source sector apportionment.

PI: V. Amiridis
Start date: 18/02/2013
Duration: 34 months

Funding: European Space Agency (ESA)

Total Budget: 300.000,00€ IAASARS Budget: 20.000,00€

HYFLEX aims to deliver maps of sun-induced fluorescence recorded from aircrafts
measurements using the approaches of the space & air borne FLEX mission. NOA participates in HYFLEX campaign by providing atmospheric lidar data that will be used for the much needed atmospheric corrections in order to retrieve reliable
hyperspectral retrievals.

PI: V. Amiridis
Start date: 01/09/2011
Duration: 24 months

Funding: European Space Agency (ESA)

Total Budget: 173.247,77€ IAASARS Budget: 173.247,77€

LIVAS provides a global 3-dimensional aerosol and cloud optical climatology and a collection of case studies focused on atmospheric episodes related to specific
aerosol/cloud. In order to cover the different spectral domains for HSRL and IPDA lidars, the compiled database addresses the three harmonic operating wavelengths of Nd-YAG lasers (355 nm, 532 nm and 1064 nm) as well as typical wavelengths of IPDA lidars in the SWIR spectral domain (1570 nm and 2050 nm).

PI: V. Amiridis
Start date: 01/03/2021,
Grantee: S. Misios
Duration: 36 months

Funding: H2020, Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions

Total Budget: 165,085.44€ IAASARS Budget: 165,085.44€

ElectricVolcano will combine state-of-art remote sensing techniques, detailed aerosol charging theories and comprehensive atmospheric modelling to provide for the first time a thorough assessment of the impact of electrification on the life cycle of volcanic ash in the stratosphere

PI: V. Amiridis,
Grantee: Antonis Gkikas
Start date: 01/05/2017
Duration: 24 months

Funding: Marie-Curie European action - Research Fellowship Programme

Total Budget: 164.653,00€ IAASARS Budget: 164.653,00€

DUST-GLASS aims at improving global dust prediction and monitoring by optimizing an advanced data assimilation system (LETKF scheme) coupled with a sophisticated atmospheric-dust model (NMMB/BSC-Dust).