TROPOSAT: the project and the scientific highlights

The successful launch in early 2002 of the SCIAMACHY instrument (SCanning ImAging spectroMeter for Atmospheric CHartographY) on the ESA ENVISAT satellite opened the second phase of a substantial European effort to study trace substances and pollutants in the troposphere with measurements from space. It was also the culmination of ideas, first mooted fifteen years ago by a team led by two of the coordinators of TROPOSAT, John Burrows and Ulrich Platt, which found their first expression in 1995 with the launch of GOME (Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment) on the ESA ERS-2 (Earth Research Satellite 2).