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COPERNICUS services evolution

HORIZON-CL4-2021-2022-SPACE

Guidance Document for Horizon Europe Space Work Programme 2021-2022

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Table of Contents

1. SCOPE OF THE DOCUMENT 3

2. COPERNICUS EVOLUTION 3

3. COPERNICUS EVOLUTION AND HORIZON EUROPE 4 3.1. Copernicus Research and Innovation needs 4 3.2. Horizon Europe for Copernicus 4 3.3. Copernicus evolution and Horizon Europe project execution – some practical timing

considerations 5

4. CALL 2021 5 4.1. HORIZON-CL4-2021-SPACE-01-41: Copernicus Climate Change Service evolution 5 4.2. HORIZON-CL4-2021-SPACE-01-42: Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service

evolution 8 4.3. HORIZON-CL4-2021-SPACE-01-43: Copernicus Security and Emergency Services

evolution 10 4.4. HORIZON-CL4-2021-SPACE-01-44: Copernicus evolution for cross-services thematic

domains 12

5. CALL 2022 16 5.1. HORIZON-CL4-2022-SPACE-01-41: Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring

Service evolution 16 5.2. HORIZON-CL4-2022-SPACE-01-42: Copernicus Anthropogenic CO₂ Emissions

Monitoring & Verification Support (MVS) capacity (RIA) 17 5.3. HORIZON-CL4-2022-SPACE-01-43: Research activities for Copernicus Land

Monitoring Service evolution 19

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1. SCOPE OF THE DOCUMENT

This guidance document further clarifies the R&I topics as reported in Horizon Europe Work Programme 2021-2022; cluster 4 Digital, Industry and Space; Destination 5 – Open strategic autonomy in developing, deploying and using global space-based infrastructures, services, applications and data; Evolution of Copernicus services. This Guidance document intends to assist applicants in preparing their proposals giving them more details on the topics themselves, covering additional needs coming from the services.

2. COPERNICUS EVOLUTION Copernicus is driven by user needs, with a priority for public policy needs addressing European and global societal challenges. Integration of emerging technologies and new methods or models must be preceded by a demonstration of an adequate level of maturity and should be based on well-identified user needs. Copernicus with its free, full and open data policy addresses public policy goals and serves core users. A long-term stability in data policy is essential to allow public services to set up a well-structured and legally recognized products uptake and the commercial sector to establish durable business strategies. The continuity and long-term sustainability of data and products is a key priority for Copernicus. Copernicus service provision is a reference point for the global success of the programme, as providing not just space-borne data products - which could be done by space agencies alone -, but also validated, analysed and interpreted information that is tailored for non-specialised users (especially outside the space area), and in particular by policymakers. The Copernicus services organise and sustain unique expertise in their respective domains and form an essential and indispensable part of the value added by the programme. The evolving services' needs for observations should also be a key driver for the evolution of the Copernicus Space Component. All the Copernicus topics should consider the priorities established in the Copernicus user’s needs Staff working document1. Another important factor for the success of the Copernicus programme is the strong liaison with user communities and the commitment to the continuation, fit-for-purpose and high quality of the services. Then the close coordination with policy makers aligned with International, EU, National and Regional policies and the ability to easily integrate space and non-space data streams and technologies into value-added information greatly improve the response to users' requirements, including sectors not yet using space solutions. Obviously the continuous dialogue and shared strategy between research and services should enable user-oriented research and quick transition to operations of achieved outcomes and the integration of Copernicus services with digital technologies, including data exploitation and data access technologies fosters the exploitation of space data assets to support co-creation of value between the Copernicus services and Member States, between research and market, between the Public and the Private sector addressing the whole value chain from education to industry for a value added user uptake.

1 SWD(2019) 394 final COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT Expression of User Needs for the Copernicus Programme, 29.10.2019 https://www.copernicus.eu/sites/default/files/2019-10/STAFF_WORKING_PAPER_2019-394-Expression_of_User_Needs_for_the_Copernicus_Programme.pdf

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3. COPERNICUS EVOLUTION AND HORIZON EUROPE

3.1. Copernicus Research and Innovation needs

The continuity of the Copernicus services and information delivery for the users maintaining appropriate levels of capacity and quality is a key objective. Many applications in the environmental and climate change domains rely on systematic and uninterrupted data provision. Services will evolve to build upon the experiences and lessons learnt so far and to reflect the advance of the state-of-the-art. The Copernicus R&I priorities for Horizon Europe have been collected and evaluated with the Entrusted Entities in charge of the Copernicus Core Services and taking into account several inputs received during more than 3 years of activities with stakeholders and users. The objectives of the Copernicus programme for the next Multi Annual Financial Framework are to reinforce its services to guarantee sustainable, systematic and reliable production of Copernicus data and information; to keep responding to evolving policies including enlarging the user-base; to tackle Global Challenges for which Europe has a key role to play. The evolution of Copernicus will build on the best EU and international research outcomes and this approach will be supported by Horizon Europe. The Copernicus Services should also evolve towards additional sectors that can be considered as cross-services e.g. arctic regions, SDGs indicators monitoring, climate adaptation, biodiversity, food security, compliance with EU legislation. For each service should be identified the potential contribution to the specific domains and similarly also the existing gaps in existing observations or data exploitation to be further addressed by the programme. The consolidated value-added chain is needed to ensure that advanced high-quality products are made available to the users.

3.2. Horizon Europe for Copernicus

Horizon Europe should help core Copernicus services to develop easy-to-use products and information to respond to core users and other user communities, including in domains not usually reached by space-based applications. Horizon Europe should help in particular to deliver more and better products to foster the creation of value and promote the spin-in of technology and good practices in service delivery and to better support users and industry in creating new complementary services and operation modalities to respond to new demands also fostering the uptake of space data and products into non-space sectors. Furthermore, Horizon Europe should ensure European technological autonomy in Earth observation and all its applications leveraging advanced distributed computing and Big Data Analytics to ensure full use of Copernicus data streams to run effective services. Horizon Europe should strengthen the innovation and research capacities of European actors all along the supply chain. The most important priority is to guarantee a very high level of products quality through all the different phases of the development process, including new modelling techniques, data assimilation and products validation. For applications and developments to thrive commercially, users should be

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involved as much as possible from the drawing board phase to the final testing in products definition and development. New actors on the supply and user side need to be brought together to exploit existing data and stimulate new application fields and related new research.

3.3. Copernicus evolution and Horizon Europe project execution – some practical timing considerations

Copernicus operational services are not static, but need to evolve with recognised and emerging user requirements and state-of-the-art methodologies. Immediate service maintenance and enhancement in response to the Copernicus Work Programme is part of operational tasks delegated in the Copernicus funding context, while long-term evolutions will need input from R&I performed outside the programme, e.g. Horizon Europe. A process has been put in place in the Copernicus services by the Entrusted Entities to review service evolution and any emerging adaptation needs as to their urgency, closeness to the operational delivery process, and availability of capacities. It should be noted that funding of Horizon Europe projects doesn’t commit the European Commission nor the Copernicus service operators to deploy the outcomes of the research in the Copernicus operational services or infrastructures. Tier-1 R&I activities correspond to developments over a timescale of some months, requiring working directly on the operational systems and close to the operational configuration; this activity needs to be directly connected with the actual operations of the different service elements and will be funded directly by Copernicus Services. Tier-2 R&I activities correspond to development work that test and prepare evolutions, which are candidate for operational implementation. These activities will largely be outsourced to maximize uptake of research results and linkage with the relevant scientific communities and will also be in large parts funded by Copernicus Services directly. Tier-2 R&I activities correspond to developmental objectives over timescales of one to two years and will investigate how potentially interesting developments (regarding identified user requirements) obtained elsewhere can apply in a context closer to Copernicus Services operations. Tier-3 R&I activities aiming at riskier and longer undertakings are also essential for the medium to long term upgrade of the system, but they will be supported by Horizon Europe in particular and possibly national research programmes. Service evolution topics will consider in particular the planned evolution of the Copernicus Space Segment, the demanding user requirements that cannot be accommodated under Tier-1 and -2 R&I activities, and the wider international research agenda on Copernicus Services topical areas.

4. CALL 2021

4.1. HORIZON-CL4-2021-SPACE-01-41: Copernicus Climate Change Service evolution

As indicated in the Work Programme, projects are expected to contribute to the following R&I areas:

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1. new and innovative coupled data assimilation to improve the next generation of global and regional reanalyses in the climate consistency of Earth-system reanalysis datasets with three key objectives:

- a better representation of climate trends and low-frequency variability,

- a better estimate of multiple ECVs physically more consistent with each other and across the earth system domains (atmosphere, ocean, land, cryosphere, sea ice, and atmospheric composition)

- more accurate characterisation of the major climate cycles (water, energy, carbon). Closing these climate cycles is of utmost relevance to five of the six Copernicus Services. Consistent climate data will benefit decision making (e.g. for a variety of sectoral applications including renewable energy, construction and water management) and support policy decisions in need of comprehensive environmental information (e.g. estimations of carbon stock take, assessment of the impacts and effectiveness of climate mitigation and adaptation policies).

The main scope of this action is to achieve an innovative fully coupled modelling and coupled data assimilation systems that ensure physical consistency of fluxes across the different components of the Earth system (atmosphere / land / ocean / sea ice / cryosphere / atmospheric composition). Given the importance of the consistency across the earth-system stronger coupling with full interaction between earth-system domains should be given serious consideration. These innovations will in turn enable a better exploitation of satellite observations sensitive to the lowest levels of the atmosphere and the surface (e.g. snow covered surfaces).

Research is also needed on the impact of model biases and on ways to reduce them as well as improved estimation of uncertainties in global and regional reanalyses, to better account for changes in the observing systems over time. In addition, research on improving the temporal evolution of boundary conditions (land use, urbanisation, vegetation etc.) is important for climate consistency, including the extension close to real time making use of Sentinel and other satellite data. Research is also needed to improve reanalysis production speed.

2. Underpinning science in predictability and multi-model product generation to improve the realism (including representation of extremes and teleconnection patterns) of the current generation of climate prediction models.

Whilst the focus here is on the technological development, it will be important to keep an eye on the needs of the users these predictions will ultimately serve. In that sense priority should be given to those model developments that are more likely to translate rapidly in tangible benefit for one or more categories of users.

There is a huge demand across a wide variety of economic sectors for weather and climate information for time horizons of months, seasons and years ahead, in the presence of climate change. These timescales are given high priority in the development of adaptation actions, societal

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transformation, prevention and planning strategies in hydrology, health, energy, agriculture, food security, and other sectors.

Research is needed:

- To improve the predictability of weather conditions that is significantly influenced by the state of the climate system at the beginning of the forecast, with different components of the system playing the dominant role for different timescales. Such predictions require models of the climate system with a good representation of all relevant components and their interactions, as well as a good specification of the initial conditions.

- To improve the initialisation by using coupled assimilation approaches to ensure consistency across the Earth System components including ocean, land, cryosphere, and to improve the accuracy and reliability, and thus the potential value of these predictions at timescales relevant for policy making.

- To investigate innovative and advanced models (e.g. higher spatial resolution, larger ensemble size, more complex coupled models) to better represent the processes underpinning predictability - for example radiative processes related with tropospheric and volcanic aerosols, stratospheric ozone and solar induced variability in the stratosphere need to be accurately and efficiently modelled and initialised from observations to overcome current weaknesses in prediction at seasonal timescales-,

- To improve techniques of diagnosing for increasing the models’ ability to represent the processes and mechanisms important in turning predictability into prediction skills.

The skill of predictions varies by forecast horizon, time of year and region. For seasonal timescales (1-6 month ahead), the tropics is the area with the most accurate and potentially useful predictions; Europe on the other hand is a region where seasonal predictions currently have relatively low skill. Novel interpretation and re-combination of data from seasonal forecast models has the potential to improve predictions over Europe (e.g. by combining skilful predictions of topical rainfall with robust teleconnections between tropical rainfall and the Europe winter climate, with ‘hybrid’, dynamical-empirical methods , or improving the representation of land conditions such as snow and soil moisture to improve predictability of continental heatwaves, droughts and water availability forecasts at seasonal timescales). Robust investigation of post-processing methodology to extract information corresponding to precise user needs from ensembles of seasonal forecast data is likely to yield significant benefits as long as the process starts with the users and their requirements rather than form the model.

Climate changes to prevailing weather patterns which can affect large enough areas and persist over long enough periods to leave a mark on the season as a whole could be anticipated; identifying the risk of the onset of such changes would be valuable to users in a wide range of societal sectors.

Longer-term predictions, stretching a few years into the future, are also possible. Data produced so far, as part of the initialised prediction efforts of the model intercomparison project (e.g. CMIP),

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offers promising results also for Europe. User-driven and user-informed techniques to extract the predictive information from such data (bias adjustment, calibration, verification) are needed, as are methodologies for combing data from these initialised predictions with data from climate projections covering longer timescales.

New technological tools should be considered and innovative solutions should be proposed for better data exploitation, processing and distribution, e.g.: move to cloud and HPC computing, distributed computing, Artificial Intelligence and machine learning (e.g. for automatic feature recognition), ensemble modelling, model coupling & nesting, software as-a-service.

4.2. HORIZON-CL4-2021-SPACE-01-42: Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service evolution

As indicated in the Work Programme, projects are expected to contribute to the following R&I areas:

1. New and innovative data assimilation of atmospheric composition satellite observations to expand the use of satellite data streams in the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) operational global and regional production systems, to improve the quality of the CAMS global and regional reactive gases and aerosol information products (analyses, forecasts and reanalyses) and to deliver near-real-time observations-based emissions of reactive gases and aerosol at the global scale

The quality of CAMS products critically depends on the capacity to process and assimilate a wide variety of space-borne observations of trace gases, greenhouse gases and aerosols. In the coming few years, a new generation of sensors will become available, offering unprecedented coverage, resolution and sensitivity. Sentinel-5P, precursor of Sentinel-5, is already proving to be a game changer for air quality, and the upcoming series of sensors on-board geostationary platforms (Sentinel-4, GEMS, TEMPO) will provide hourly values compared to current typical daily revisit times. EUMETSAT’s Polar System Second Generation (EPS-SG) will also bring new advanced sensors for atmospheric composition, IASI-NG and 3MI particularly.

New sensors have much more advanced capabilities in particular for monitoring near-surface concentrations and emissions. A more comprehensive exploitation of these new enhanced EO data is needed and these data will have a great impact on the already existing CAMS products with the possibility to enlarge the baseline portfolio with new and more relevant products. In particular, it is a high priority within the Copernicus programme to ensure that the observational streams from Sentinel-4 and Sentinel-5 are used as early as possible after data is commissioned in the CAMS operational systems. A subject of high interest is the development of observation-based emissions (using operational data assimilation or inverse modelling approaches), while use for improving global and regional atmospheric composition analyses, forecasts and reanalyses are also high on the agenda.

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Besides work specific to the sensors mentioned, there are a range of aspects that need to be investigated so that the data assimilation frameworks in the CAMS global and regional systems are ready to harness the full potential of the Global Observing System (GOS) for atmospheric composition.

The proposal should take into consideration the following activities:

- inclusion of both concentrations and emissions in the control vector to improve forecasts and to provide analyses of emissions (as products in their own right);

- addressing open issues on the optimal use of satellite observations: multispectral radiances assimilation, assimilation of “fused” retrievals (combined information from two or more sensors) vs assimilation of single-sensor retrievals;

- the use of multivariate assimilation of chemically related constituents, so that observation of one constituent also improves the distribution of connected species;

- explore practical approaches to estimate and update the background error covariance matrix in an operational context, especially using Ensemble of Data Assimilation techniques;

- improve code scalability and efficiency aspects, taking advantage of emerging HPC hardware technologies;

- preparing for the future GOS using Observing System Simulation Experiments (OSSEs); - development efforts for enabling high-quality reanalyses for longer historical periods common with C3S,

focusing on atmospheric composition aspects.

2. New methods for quantifying uncertainties for atmospheric CAMS composition products in the

context of decision-making as well as of environmental policies development and implementation to be directly useful for the users of the product

While a fraction of the CAMS products is provided with uncertainty information (regional air quality, surface fluxes of greenhouse gases, climate radiative forcings), there is scope for improving these methods and for exploiting and designing new and relevant approaches to provide uncertainty estimates for the entire CAMS portfolio. Besides being directly useful for the users of the products, model uncertainty estimates are also a key input to data assimilation algorithms and can improve the quality of analyses and reanalyses. Appropriate communication of these uncertainties to varied audiences also needs more consideration.

Research is needed:

- to identify and test practical ways of quantifying the uncertainty associated with all the different CAMS information products, focusing particularly on the atmospheric concentrations of key trace gases, aerosol and greenhouse gases at the global scale and on the solar radiation products;

- to understand fundamental aspects of error propagation and error growth in atmospheric composition modelling, which also underpins progress on predictability;

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- to investigate ensemble methods that are compatible with a stringent time-critical operational context and the upcoming generation of high-performance computers.

The main output of the project shall be tools and methodologies that can be readily transferred to CAMS operational systems, for adding uncertainty information to the already existing products that lack such information and, with lower priority, to improve the robustness and accuracy of uncertainty information for products that already have some indication of the inherent uncertainties.

These R&I activities will particularly focus on:

- developing uncertainty information for the CAMS global atmospheric composition products (analyses, forecasts and reanalyses) and the solar radiation products (clear and cloudy-sky).

- improvements to uncertainty estimates for the regional air quality products, the surface fluxes of greenhouse gases and the climate forcings.

4.3. HORIZON-CL4-2021-SPACE-01-43: Copernicus Security and Emergency Services evolution

As indicated in the Work Programme, projects are expected to contribute to new and innovative methods and technologies to enhance the current services performance, specifically such as timeliness access to data, the need to reduce the gap between user needs and service provision, new paradigms in data fusion, automation and inclusion of wider sets of complementary, non-EO data and to demonstrate the viability of extending services to a broader range of users (from European to local users), to better monitor security and emergency threats at regional or local level through cross-border cooperation and exploitation of local intelligence and resources.

Copernicus brought Earth Observation also to the benefit of emergency and security applications. Today, Copernicus Emergency Management Service (EMS) provides information for emergency response in relation to different types of disasters, including meteorological hazards, geophysical hazards, deliberate and accidental man-made disasters and other humanitarian disasters as well as prevention, preparedness, response and recovery activities. The Copernicus EMS is composed of an on-demand mapping component providing rapid maps for emergency response and risk & recovery maps for prevention and planning and of the early warning and monitoring component, which includes systems for floods, droughts and forest fires. Copernicus Security Services use intelligence derived from the fusion and interpretation of space imagery to the benefit of a wide community of users clustered around service areas such as maritime surveillance, customs, fisheries, law enforcement or border management. Services are supplied through an inter-agency cooperation arrangement between the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (EBCGA) and the Maritime Surveillance Agency (EMSA) and The EU Satellite Centre (SatCen).

There are different aspects to be considered for service evolution:

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• Enhancements to an existing element or component e.g. through technology improvements such as automation of existing processes in core services;

• New elements or components to the existing (core) service;

• New services complementing the core services and providing added functionality as required by users; e.g. in a National or Regional context.

Actions aimed at service evolution should be developed in response to specific policy and user requirements while seizing the opportunities provided by the evolution in technology.

The proposal should focus on one or more of the following aspects:

- Improve data integration and assimilation from new technologies by increasing technology readiness levels for incorporation in the supply chain, including data fusion, automated processing of larger data-sets and applied artificial intelligence.

- Improve the accuracy and timely delivery of satellite based products (with emphasis on very high and high resolution on-demand mapping) as well as modelling results.

- Take advantage of systematic and continuous satellite image acquisitions for setting up automatic mapping systems

- Make optimum use of the variety of sensors and their complementarity in terms of spectral, spatial, and temporal resolution and satellite agility while considering the existing and the planned new constellations of Earth-observation satellites (so called ‘new space’)

- Improve end-user access to products and their visualisation to facilitate decision making - For emergency applications, investigate how existing or new early warning and alert

systems can be linked efficiently to the on-demand mapping modules of CEMS, including, but not limited to flood, fire, and drought mapping as well as damage assessments (of assets), while building on the existing CEMS components.

Proposals shall duly take into consideration practical aspects related to the integration of results into Copernicus services, including feasibility and cost/benefit analysis as well as timeline for technology maturity of the solutions proposed and their deployment in operational environments. Proposals should include either a proof-of-concept or prototype demonstrating the feasibility of the integration in the existing core service or the added-value of new elements in new application areas.

Further evolution and integration of new data from potential space or no-space new mission/sensors should be considered. Whenever appropriate, proposals should also integrate Earth-observation data with other data (e.g. navigation/timing and telecommunication) provided by the other EU space programmes (e.g. Galileo, EGNOS, GOVSATCOM). The use of standards should be favoured, whenever possible in a R&D environment and security threats (e.g. cybersecurity) in the data flow and sensitivity of data and service products should be taken into account.

Finally, proposals should also respond to the continuous interest of users to access imagery and to facilitate user’s geospatial analysis by offering processing capabilities in the dissemination interface. In view of

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offering very fast access to both imagery and derived information products, even in remote places and in the absence of broadband internet connection, solutions for advanced dissemination of large amounts of data require research to explore and evolve innovative data formats and technologies, considering the sensitivity of the data of the security and emergency services.

4.4. HORIZON-CL4-2021-SPACE-01-44: Copernicus evolution for cross-services thematic domains

As indicated in the Work Programme, projects are expected to contribute to the following R&I areas.

1) Integrated monitoring and forecasting system for the Arctic regions

The main goal is to prepare Copernicus-based solutions for safe, stable, sustainable and prosperous Arctic underpinning an integrated approach for the monitoring and the forecasting in the Arctic regions with new and improved polar services taking into account the different domains: land and ocean (including biodiversity and cryosphere), atmosphere, emergency, climate change, and tackling emerging needs. In addition the project shall provide useful tools to better address the impacts of climate change and related risks, and contribute to resilience integrating as far as possible all capacities offered by space technologies and programs (Copernicus, Galileo, EGNOS) as part of the integrated approach. Copernicus already addresses the Arctic Regions, but the proposal should support the development of new integrated arctic services taking into account the existing service elements and benefiting from all sources of data (existing and future Sentinels and contributing missions) and latest science for the monitoring of climate impacts and preparation of resilience services and the development of sustainable economy in safe conditions. This should take into account:

- the users’ needs expressed and reported in the various Copernicus polar expert groups2 and the renewal of the Arctic policy3

- the outcomes of previous projects related to the Arctic (e.g. Kepler, IMMERSE, EU Polar cluster4).

All categories of users from the public to the private sector should be considered in the frame of the proposal up to the citizen and indigenous population. Use of DIAS platforms and Climate Data Store from the Climate Change Service is encouraged for the best use of emerging digital technologies such as cloud computing or AI. A web platform is not expected and the priority should be given to the development of products with innovative technologies. One or several of the following domains should be taken into account:

• Climate change and integration of domains:

2 https://cimr.eu/documents, PEG I ISBN 978-92-79-80961-3, doi:10.2760/22832, JRC111067, PEG II ISBN 978-92-79-80960-6, doi:10.2760/44170, JRC111068, PEG III under editing to be available in the link presented 3 https://eeas.europa.eu/arctic-policy/eu-arctic-policy_en, adoption of renewed version quarter 4 2021 4 https://www.polarcluster.eu/.

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o Overview of the changes to the Arctic as a regulator of the climate as it is turning into a contributor to climate change (considering thawing permafrost, melting ice and snow accelerated by changes in albedo, sea water temperature, land cover, forest fires etc)

o Characterization of Arctic habitats and effects on these habitats caused by changing climate and environment (parameters such as temperatures, glaciers, snow, ice, melting, pH, primary production)

o Development of seasonal to decadal environmental scenarios integrating different services to better characterize Arctic changes and impacts of policies on arctic changes

• Ocean and Sea-Ice: o Development of assimilation of satellite sea-ice observations into models together

with impact assessments of present and future Sentinel missions, and predictability studies for ocean and sea-ice parameters.

o Major upgrade in sea-ice models based on a more realistic sea ice rheology, improved representation of sea-ice thermodynamic and dynamic processes and improved coupling with the atmosphere, waves and hydrology (river discharge and nutrient loads).

o Develop sea-ice extended forecasting range up to a month and ensemble approaches for an improved characterization of sea ice forecasting uncertainties.

o Improved biogeochemical modelling to support the monitoring of the carbon pump in high latitudes, biodiversity strategy (CBD, BBNJ) and marine resources management (CFP, ICES).

• Land: o Improved and new products to monitor the terrestrial cryosphere including lake ice

extent (including smaller lakes), glacier, caps and ice sheets, snow better characterization;

o Development of products related to the permafrost like extent/fraction and topography/deformation monitoring;

o Better characterization of surface fresh water specially wetlands, along rivers in terms of run-off , ice parameters;

o Monitoring of short term and long-term changes between iced and non-iced areas affecting habitats, environmental conservation including biodiversity and economy;

• Emergency and maritime safety: o Better risk forecast for climate adaptation in polar areas related to floods, sea-level

rise, subsidence, landslides, avalanches and fires; o New methodologies for improved monitoring of safety at sea risks with a focus on

ice sheets; o Development of methodology and products for snow monitoring;

• Atmosphere: o enhancement of products related to methane, CO2 and black carbon emissions,

focusing on processes that have specificities in the Arctic region (e.g. boreal fires, permafrost thawing...) to the extent possible, divided by type of source

o Improvement of the ozone monitoring and impact over the poles.

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Needs identified for the Arctic are partly applicable also to monitor the Antarctic precisely in the purpose of monitoring the effects of climate change, sea ice and ice caps interactions with the oceans and sea level rise.

2) Copernicus evolution to support the monitoring of SDGs with Copernicus reference data

The main goal is to prepare Copernicus-based solutions for an integrated approach to support the production of many SDGs indicators such as long-time series to monitor atmosphere composition and air quality, the ocean health, and regular mapping of terrestrial ecosystems. In addition an advanced methodology shall be developed for and together with the SDG-statistical EU and national communities to deliver Copernicus-based products ready to be used (in terms of content, compliance to methodology of calculation, consistency of time series, accuracy and veracity, formats and standards) integrating data coming from different sources and based on international working groups on geo-information for SDGs and standards.

The proposed solution shall leverage on existing investments from various working groups (ESA, GEO, EUROSTAT, EEA, JRC, UN-SDG working groups...) to identify possible methodologies that could evolve to take on board EO together with in-situ and models for the future operational and sustained provision of Copernicus environmental data and products for SDG indicator production, and in support of SDG achievements. Copernicus already provides core information that can be used to support the production of some SDGs indicators such as ocean acidification, eutrophication (goal 14 ’Life below water’), soil sealing (goal 15 ’Life on land’) and at global scale, inland water quality and extent (goal 6 ‘clean water and sanitation’). Copernicus could be considered a valuable source for many other SDG indicators such SDG 2 (Zero hunger), SDG 3 (Good health and well-being), SDG6 (Clean water and sanitation), SDG 7 (Affordable and clean energy), SDG9 (Industry innovation and infrastructure), SDG11 (Sustainable cities and communities), SDG13 (Climate action), SDG14 (Life below water) and SDG15 (Life on land). To be concretely used, many barriers need to be solved. The scope of the project is to get rid of such barriers so that the producers of the final indicators can integrate more Copernicus products in their systematic indicator. The objective is really to foster the usage of socio-economic statistics integrated with Copernicus information products to better address SDGs targets, and related questions.

The proposal should therefore:

- Interact with producers of final indicators – Eurostat and Member States, third countries, UN institutions – to identify which indicator could use environmental data and information product from Copernicus;

- Identify the relevant source of EO data (in addition to Copernicus if needed), non-space data (in-situ, models) and socio-economic data that should be made available and qualified to support the development of SDGS EO and non-EO-based indicators;

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- Design and prototype some of these new Copernicus data and information product for SDGs, compliant with the methodologies and quality of data required for their production by/with statisticians and in line with and complementary to international methodological guidance;

- Experiment how indicators or core information for indicators may support the connectivity between SDG indicators and ensure the share of reference data based on Copernicus between several indicators;

- Document and develop appropriate quality control and validation methodology so that these new Copernicus sets of data and products is fully acceptable within the UN system of indicator production and statistical rules;

- Propose a roadmap for such core data and information products to be transferred to operations in Copernicus with the necessary set of additional data required if any (to be available of a sustained and operational basis) and listing on which Copernicus services input data need to be based on;

- Define recommendations for the evolution of the satellite ground segment, in situ observing system components, and information from the Copernicus Services and possibly the next generation of Sentinels to support the production of SDG indicators in the long-term directly or indirectly (included as a source for statistical models);

- Publish and promote at large this new set of Copernicus data and information so they are adopted as much as possible by countries in and outside Europe and become a reference.

These new products should leverage on the existing core information products and Sentinel data combined with additional source of data, taking into account the necessity for historical information and regular updates. The project should also clearly demonstrate that the products are ready for a systematic use by the statistical offices and that the stakeholders in charge of indicators production endorse Copernicus as a reference data to be used.

Involvement of national entities in charge of producing and reporting data on SDG indicators to EUROSTAT and the UN agencies should be foreseen in the proposal.

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5. CALL 2022

5.1. HORIZON-CL4-2022-SPACE-01-41: Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service evolution

As indicated in the Work Programme, the main scope of this R&I is the development of new and innovative models for marine ecosystems monitoring and related biogeochemistry.

The Copernicus Marine Service already operates data processing systems and numerical models to describe over past decades and to forecast the ocean physics, the sea-ice and the biogeochemistry. State-of-the-art biogeochemical models operated in the Copernicus Marine Service are complex, highly non-linear, heavily parameterized, poorly constrained, limited to low trophic levels and cannot be validated rigorously enough due to the scarcity of observations. They need to be further improved and validated with new in-situ and satellite data and higher trophic levels should be included.

A breakthrough in terms of “marine biology” dynamics modelling from plankton to apex predators in the context of their environment and man-made pressures is the focus of this research. The project should therefore address remaining gaps in terms of biogeochemistry modelling, to represent the dynamics of the biological component of the ocean in terms of ‘fauna and flora’. In particular, a better understanding is expected on the ocean biogeochemical state and the plankton-to-fish links, on how the marine living component behaves in relation to the ocean physical and chemical state (e.g. temperature, currents, oxygen) and to pressures from climate change and direct human activities (e.g. pollution, fisheries, etc.) that can impact negatively or positively stocks, species reproduction or migration. The development shall consider and be based on existing or on-going advanced research and models available on the topic.

The targeted improved marine biology modelling thus aims at gaining understanding of the complete marine ecosystems. The enhanced marine biology monitoring capacity also aims at preparing Copernicus-based solution to respond to priority policies related to the marine living environment in a context of Green Deal and also in the context of the SDGs. Important policies include the Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 with the EU 2020 targets related to marine ecosystems, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14 (which includes three targets linked to ocean biogeochemistry and live ecosystems), the forthcoming decision to regulate areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ initiative), the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) and the Common Fisheries Policy Regulation (CFP) and Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs). The project will also support better downstream services related to water quality, eutrophication, CO2 fluxes and acidification, fishery and aquaculture management, living marine resources sustainability and protection, and evaluating their resilience to climate change.

Therefore, the following research activities are required:

- Improving the monitoring over past decades of low trophic levels in the Copernicus Marine Service Monitoring and Forecasting Centres and to build capacity on high trophic level monitoring:

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- Improving the gathering, processing and quality control of new biogeochemical and marine biology in-situ observations in open and coastal ocean (e.g. optical and acoustic observations) required for assimilation and/or model validation.

- Improving the gathering and processing of new satellite observations (e.g. hyperspectral missions such as PRISMA/ASI and PACE/NASA) required for assimilation and/or model validation or for the monitoring also possible other pollutants or new chemicals impacting the food web (e.g. harmful algal blooms).

- Improving marine biogeochemical numerical models (low trophic levels, phytoplankton and zooplankton) in terms of represented processes (e.g. benthic/pelagic coupling, riverine inputs) and accuracy. Developing end-to-end (E2E) ecosystem models (including possibly assimilation schemes if necessary) to link along the food web low trophic levels to mid-trophic levels (e.g. micronekton) and to high-trophic levels (fishes, marine mammals, …) from global to regional scales to support the assessment of food security and of climate change impacts on marine ecosystems. The corresponding products should be tested and used for marine protected area management, biodiversity convention considerations, fish stock management and common fishery policy, possibly targeting major exploited species of relevance for Europe, or protected worldwide.

- To evaluate marine biology response and resilience to climate change: o Assessing scenarios for climate change impacts on stocks and protected species: using

existing projections of the climate state for the 21st century and the developed E2E ecosystem models to generate projections for fish stocks and protected species (biomass, habitats).

o Uncertainties (related to climate change scenario, climate models, etc.) shall be characterized. Fishing pressure scenarios should also be considered in relation to policies assessment.

For integration in the Copernicus Marine Service and to support policies:

- Specifying a future portfolio of products for operational marine living ecosystem monitoring based on observations and modelling (e.g. habitat mapping, prey mapping, migration patterns, pressure maps, evolution of the biomass and spatial distribution of fishes and other marine animals, etc….), fit for purpose for the above policies implementation, that can progressively reach maturity and transition to operations according to available and upcoming science.

- Proposing a roadmap for the scaling up of operational marine live ecosystems modeling for exploitation and conservation purposes, fit for purpose for EU policies implementation and international negotiations in the context of the CFP, the CBD and the BBNJ, in consultation with major stakeholders such as DGs, RFMOs, world conservation associations.

5.2. HORIZON-CL4-2022-SPACE-01-42: Copernicus Anthropogenic CO₂ Emissions Monitoring & Verification Support (MVS) capacity (RIA)

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As indicated in the Work Programme, projects are expected to contribute to the following R&I areas:

1. New and innovative methodologies to improve the definition of the correlations between emissions of co-emitted species (CO2, NO2, CO, CH4) in support of CO2 fossil fuel emission estimation

One of the major challenges of the future Copernicus anthropogenic CO2 emissions Monitoring & Verification Support (CO2MVS) capacity is the separation of the anthropogenic signal in the observed atmospheric concentrations from the natural variability. Because CO2 is often emitted together with other pollutants, such as nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and carbon monoxide (CO), preliminary studies have looked into using the correlations between these co-emitted species to better constrain the emission estimates of each individual species. However, these correlations vary depending on the source of the emissions.

The scope of the project is to improve the use of observations of co-emitted species (CO2, NO2, CO, CH4) to better estimate anthropogenic emissions in the CO2MVS capacity. This is based on the recognition that anthropogenic CO2 emissions can never completely be constrained with CO2 concentration observations alone, and the detectability of the anthropogenic signal of co-emitted species is often much better than that of CO2. This was already recognized in the design of the CO2M mission, which will have a NO2 sensor on board of the same platform (see CO2M Mission Requirement Document5).

New and innovative methodologies should be developed to estimate the spatial and temporal correlations of co-emitted species and to make use of these correlations in the global and local data assimilation systems of the CO2MVS capacity. These methodologies can be based on observation-based information as well as statistical information.

Research activities are needed to:

- investigate innovative methods to better correlate emissions of co-emitted species, such as CO2, CH4, NO2 and CO, as a function of fuel type, country and sector. This will allow better harmonization between emission estimates for the CO2MVS capacity and for air quality in the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) as well as potentially improve the estimates for each individual species.

- Investigate the uncertainties in the so-called emission factors, which quantify the amount of emission for each species for a specific burning process and that often depend on ancillary information (e.g., maps of urban, residential, and industrial areas) and choice of emissions schemes. Atmospheric concentrations of these species are indeed observed independently from space and, because they have very different atmospheric lifetimes, information can be extracted from the differences between their spatial distributions by means of data assimilation techniques. In addition, the use of space-based high-resolution ancillary maps would also support the sectoral attribution.

5 https://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/EarthObservation/CO2M_MRD_v2.0_Issued20190927.pdf

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2. New and innovative methods to better use of auxiliary observations such as 14C (radiocarbon), SIF (Solar Induced Fluorescence), and APO (Atmospheric Potential Oxygen) to separate anthropogenic CO2 emissions from the natural variability of CO2

The CO2MVS capacity focuses on extracting relevant information from the CO2M satellite mission and the various in situ networks. However, to better separate the anthropogenic signal from the natural signal in the observed CO2 concentrations, it is critical to exploit additional observations. These observations can roughly be divided into observations that provide information on fossil fuel emission proxies, on atmospheric species other than CO₂ that are affected by anthropogenic emission sources, on variables that control the contribution of the land carbon cycle to atmospheric CO₂ concentrations, and on variables that control the contribution of the ocean carbon cycle to atmospheric CO₂ concentrations.

Typical examples are night lights observations from various satellite sensors that provide information on human activities and which can be used as a proxy for anthropogenic emissions, or radiocarbon (14C), which is directly related to fossil fuel emissions. For the terrestrial biosphere domain, one can think of observations of biomass or Solar Induced fluorescence (SIF) to provide information on the activity of the land biosphere. For the oceanic domain, Atmospheric Potential Oxygen (APO) is considered to be a useful tracer. Most of these observations provide indirect, though crucial information, on anthropogenic CO₂ emissions and they should be used where meaningful.

Observation operators to enable the use of these auxiliary observations are being developed and tested in global and local data assimilation systems similar to those being developed for the CO2MVS capacity. The use of these auxiliary observations should be tested with a specific focus on their impact at the different temporal scales (day-to-day monitoring versus annual reanalyses).

Research is needed to develop methods and modelling capabilities to make use of additional types of observations within the foreseen CO2MVS capacity.

5.3. HORIZON-CL4-2022-SPACE-01-43: Research activities for Copernicus Land Monitoring Service evolution

As indicated in the Work Programme, projects are expected to contribute to the development of new and innovative methods to combine and explore data with different spatial and temporal characteristics and automatic processing for land cover and land cover status change assessment.

The scope of the proposal should be the development of efficient and performant methods and tools to explore and combine data and information products with very different characteristics in terms of spatial and temporal resolution; that in order to provide consistent products at different temporal, spatial and thematic resolutions (i.e. interactively moving between spatial and thematic scales) in a timely manner with automatic processing approaches capable of analysing data on real and near real time. The approach should consider different techniques and structures, including data cube (to combine) and data mining (to explore) and data processing (to interpret).

There’s a clear difference between the typical mapping, at one side “(very) high resolution and low frequency update” type of data, and the usual monitoring at the other side “mid to low but very frequently updated” type of data that it is not simply a matter of combinations or overlays to extract the right

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information out of the combined datasets in order to better capture the various environmental and climate change related domains features.

The same concept can be applied to vegetation and crop condition changes, including cryosphere and inlands water variables where the combination of different spatial resolution, sensor spectral characteristics, and observation frequencies could lead to improved variable monitoring as well as the production of new variables, the high revisit frequency but low spatial resolution being complemented by the low revisit frequency but high spatial resolution

The methodology shall integrate differences in term of spatial and spectral characteristics in order to provide consistency over long time series of products, this long-time series consistency being an essential element for many environmental and climate change applications. The objective is to demonstrate the feasibility of proposed techniques to be operational and being operationalized in the context of Copernicus services at EU and Global scale. Examples could be to deliver geophysical land products at different scales (from 20 m to 1 km) with assessment of quality and consistency and to improve the monitoring in quasi-near-real time of terrestrial ecosystem and anthropogenic impact on these ecosystems.

Proposals should of course consider new IT tools and innovative solutions should be proposed for an optimal exploitation of the data, products, improved processing, modelling and distribution chains, e.g.: cloud and HPC computing, distributed computing, Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, ensemble modelling, model coupling & nesting, software as-a-service to name but a few.

The developments and implementation should be proposed as modular and scalable. The projects should provide a proof-of-concept or a prototype (e.g. system element) demonstrating the feasibility of its integration in the existing operational core service if relevant, or the integration into downstream applications. This new “system element” should also guarantee the expandability required for the integration of new data from foreseen space or no-space new missions/sensors if necessary.

Additionally, the transfer from research to operations should receive full attention during the course of the projects to strengthen the readiness for an operational and agile deployment in the future, including the conditions for making freely available, for re-use and exploit the results (including IPR) to the entities implementing the EU Copernicus programme if it is required. The software should be open licensed in order to use, copy, study, and change it in any way. The proposals should also investigate to what extent the proposed evolution could be in practice integrated into the operational Copernicus services in terms of timing and of any other aspects crucial for ingestion by an operational context without production disruption.