The scientific objective of the GeoTROPE mission is to investigate and assess the importance of anthropogenic activity and natural phenomena on the changing tropospheric composition, linking diurnal with seasonal to annual timescales, and regional with continental to global spatial scales.

In the troposphere the variability of chemical loss and source strength combined with the dynamics of transport and mixing induce significant and important short term, i.e. sub-hourly, variations and significant horizontal and vertical variability of constituents and geophysical parameters.

Observational limitations of low-Earth orbit (LEO) platforms (daily revisit time, local cloud cover) dictate that the troposphere is significantly undersampled. In order to fulfil the scientific objective there is an overriding requirement for sub-hourly measurements, including night-day cycles, at appropriate horizontal and vertical resolution. Measurements from Geostationary Orbit (GEO) offer the only practical approach to the observation of diurnal variation from space with the pertinent horizontal resolution.

For detailed information, please visit the GEOTROPE homepage.