Forward and Inverse Tool for FORUM

FIT-FORUM is part of the “Scientific activities to support the development of Earth Observation
missions”, promoted by ASI. The project is developed within the Implementation Agreement (n. 2023-23-HH.0) between ASI and the University of Bologna which coordinates 5 more teams with specific expertise on rt modelling and remote sensing.

The general goal of the project is to develop a set of advanced and innovative tools along
the radiative transfer chain at far and thermal infrared, with focus on ESA EE9 FORUM observations.
The models will be used for the:

• Characterization of level 2 and level 3 products obtainable from the FORUM mission;
• Acquisition of the knowledge necessary for the definition of the main parameterisations of
  atmospheric variables (i.e., gas optical depths, cloud/aerosol radiative properties);
• Derivation of the radiative operators which will be used in the data assimilation phase;
• Training of personnel capable of using, updating and improving advanced analysis tools.

Dissemination activity

Dissemination of the FIT-FORUM project and of its preliminary results has started with the participation to the 2nd FORUM international workshop held in Leicester (UK) from 29/11/23 to 01/12 2023 of various team members. The First Training Staff School was organised at University of Bologna on 1-2 February 2024.

The FIT-FORUM project was introduced at the International Radiation Symposium held in Hangzhou (China) on 17-21 June 2024. In the same meeting the Team presented some applications of the forward and inverse code.
The FIT-FORUM Team also introduced the Italian activity in radiative transfer modelling at the online session of the International Working Group on Radiative Transfer and Surface Properties (Intersessional RTSP WG meeting 2024) held on 25/06/2024. The attendance showed a spread interest in the modelling activities performed within the FIT-FORUM project and on the outcomes of the project, especially in the sigma-FORUM code. A request for having a distributable version of the code was initiated by Benjamin T. Johnson (NASA) who was leading the online session.

All the Teams participated to the ESA ATMOS 2024 conference with oral and poster presentations. The ATMOS conference was held in Bologna from 1 to 5/07/2024; one of the most important conclusions of the discussion sessions was the necessity of developing physical tools for the analysis of the satellite measurements. It was pointed out that the Italian Space Agency is supporting this need with specific programs such as FIT-FORUM.

Successively, other dissemination activities were performed:

• 2-6/09/2024: International School on Satellite Meteorology (Naples). The students (about 60) learned the basic functioning of sigma-FORUM and used it for sensitivity studies.
• 9-13/09/2024: Congresso nazionale della Società Italiana di Fisica. The activities brought on in the project have been presented.
• 16-20/09/2024: Remote Sensing of Clouds and Atmosphere XXIX SPIE Remote Sensing conference (Edinburgh)
• 25-27/11/2024: The IDEA S4S annual meeting (Bologna). Tiziano Maestri (Invited Talk): “The FORUM mission and the Italian activities.
• 2-6/12/2024: IASI Conference, Nancy (France). The activities brought on in the project have been presented by several team members of the project.

References

• Marco Ridolfi, Bianca Maria Dinelli, Claudio Belotti, Giovanni Bianchini, Samuele Del Bianco, Gianluca Di Natale, Federico Donat, Giuliano Liuzzi, Tiziano Maestri, Michele Martinazzo, Guido Masiello, Carmine Serio, Luca Sgheri, Luca Palchetti, FARM: FAst Retrieval Model for the Simultaneous Inversion of Co-located Spectral Radiance Measurements, IASI-2024 conference, Nancy, France, 2 – 6 December 2024. Abstract and Poster.
• Luca Palchetti, Marco Barucci, Claudio Belotti, Francesco D’Amato, Samuele Del Bianco, Gianluca Di Natale, Bianca Maria Dinelli, Marco Ridolfi, Silvia Viciani, Retrieval studies using the Far-IR spectral measurements performed by FIRMOS-B from stratospheric balloon flights, IASI-2024 conference, Nancy, France, 2 – 6 December 2024. Abstract and Talk slides.
• Masiello et al., Thirty years of spectrally resolved observations from far to near infrared, Congresso Nazionale Società Italiana di Fisica, Bologna,13/09/2024
• Masiello et al., Developments of the σ-IASI/F2N radiative transfer model: a new linear-in-T approach for accurate treatment of clouds, SPIE Conference, Remote Sensing of Clouds and the Atmosphere XXIX, Edinburgh, UK, 17/09/2024 (It will be followed by indexed Conference Paper – Submitted)
• First Training Staff School of FIT-FORUM, University of Bologna, 1-2 February 2024
• T. Maestri and the FORUM team, The FIT‐FORUM project, 2nd FORUM international workshop, held in Leicester (UK) on 29 November – 2 December 2023.