{
  "abstract": "In May 2024, the Earth Clouds, Aerosols and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE) satellite was launched. For the first time a satellite combines two active instruments, i.e., the Atmospheric Lidar and the Cloud Profiling Radar, together with two passive instruments, a multi-spectral imager and a broad-band radiometer, on one single spacecraft platform. EarthCARE is thus the most complex satellite mission to date to for collocated aerosol, cloud, radiation and precipitation measurements. To utilize the data collected by the EarthCARE mission to its full extent and to support and quantify the data quality and measurement uncertainty, careful and holistic validation activities are needed. For this purpose, we set up an airborne instrument payload on the German High Altitude and LOng-range research aircraft (HALO), which is similar to the EarthCARE instrumentation. We used this payload during an extensive measurement campaign in summer and fall 2024 in the tropic, sup-tropic and mid- to high-latitudes targeting to validate the EarthCARE measurements and data products early in its commissioning phase. With 33 passes under the EarthCARE satellite during 30 research flights we were able to address target scenes that have been identified by the EarthCARE algorithm developers to be of importance for the validation of the mission, and to assure the retrieval performance under different meteorological conditions and aerosol-cloud situations.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V. (DLR) (Cologne, Germany)",
    "Institue of Atmospheric Physics (PA), German Aerospace Center (DLR), Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany",
    "Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M), Hamburg, Germany",
    "Leipzig Institute for Meteorology (LIM), Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany",
    "National Observatory of Athens (NOA), Athens, Greece",
    "Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU), Munich, Germany",
    "European Space Agency (ESA), Noordwijk, the Netherlands",
    "Earth Observation Research Center, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Tsukuba-city, Japan"
  ],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 22,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Silke Groß",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-7467-9269"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1
      ],
      "name": "Florian Ewald",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-5899-0890"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2
      ],
      "name": "Björn Stevens",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-3795-0475"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1
      ],
      "name": "Martin Wirth",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-5951-2252"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1
      ],
      "name": "Georgios Dekoutsidis",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-1083-0609"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3
      ],
      "name": "André Ehrlich",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-0860-8216"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4
      ],
      "name": "Dimitra Kouklaki",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-8652-0442"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1
      ],
      "name": "Konstantin Krüger",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-0778-9756"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3
      ],
      "name": "Sophie Rosenburg",
      "orcid": "0009-0004-6119-9196"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        5
      ],
      "name": "Lea Volkmer",
      "orcid": "0009-0009-2561-9102"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        6
      ],
      "name": "Jonas von Bismarck"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2
      ],
      "name": "Lutz Hirsch"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3
      ],
      "name": "Anna Luebke",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-1606-6939"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4
      ],
      "name": "Eleni D. Marinou",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-2631-6057"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        5
      ],
      "name": "Bernhard Mayer",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-3358-0190"
    },
    {
      "name": "Montserrat Piñol Solé"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3
      ],
      "name": "Manfred Wendisch",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-4652-5561"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2
      ],
      "name": "Julia Windmiller"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4
      ],
      "name": "Vassilis Amiridis",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-1544-7812"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        6
      ],
      "name": "Rob Koopman"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        7
      ],
      "name": "Takuji Kubota",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-0282-1075"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1
      ],
      "name": "Markus Rapp",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-1508-5900"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/2qkp28xre7dz8.bib",
  "cited_by": 7,
  "doi": "10.5194/amt-19-3933-2026",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "2qkp28xre7dz8",
  "issns": [
    "1867-1381",
    "1867-8548"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-19-3933-2026",
  "language": "en",
  "licence": "CC-BY",
  "licence_label": "CC BY",
  "licence_source": "journal",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "openalex",
      "2306|Atmospheric aerosols and clouds"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7164877781",
  "pdf_url": null,
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-06-16",
  "publisher": "Copernicus Publications",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/2qkp28xre7dz8.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-04T13:21:18Z",
      "native_id": "W7164877781",
      "source": "openalex",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-19-3933-2026"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "earth",
      "origin": "openalex:2306|Atmospheric aerosols and clouds",
      "subfield": "climate"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Persistent EarthCARE underflight studies of the ITCZ and organized convection (PERCUSION): contribution to EarthCARE validation",
  "title_text": "Persistent EarthCARE underflight studies of the ITCZ and organized convection (PERCUSION): contribution to EarthCARE validation",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-09T13:21:20Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/2qkp28xre7dz8",
  "venue": "Atmospheric measurement techniques",
  "versions": []
}