The TROPOMI instrument onboard the Copernicus SENTINEL-5 Precursor satellite is a nadir-viewing, imaging spectrometer that provides global measurements of atmospheric properties and constituents on a daily basis. It is contributing to monitoring air quality and climate, providing critical information to services and decision makers.

The instrument uses passive remote sensing techniques by measuring the top of atmosphere solar radiation reflected by and radiated from the earth and its atmosphere. The four spectrometers of TROPOMI cover the ultraviolet (UV), visible (VIS), Near Infra-Red (NIR) and Short Wavelength Infra-Red (SWIR) domains of the electromagnetic spectrum. The operational trace gas products generated at DLR on behave ESA are: Ozone (O3), Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), Sulfur Dioxide (SO2), Formaldehyde (HCHO), Carbon Monoxide (CO) and Methane (CH4), together with clouds and aerosol properties.

This product displays the Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) near surface concentration for Germany and neighboring countries as derived from the POLYPHEMUS/DLR air quality model. Surface NO2 is mainly generated by anthropogenic sources, e.g. transport and industry.

This Level 4 air quality product (surface NO2 at 15:00 UTC) is based on innovative algorithms, processors, data assimilation schemes and operational processing and dissemination chain developed in the framework of the INPULS project. The DLR project INPULS develops (a) innovative retrieval algorithms and processors for the generation of value-added products from the atmospheric Copernicus missions Sentinel-5 Precursor, Sentinel-4, and Sentinel-5, (b) cloud-based (re)processing systems, (c) improved data discovery and access technologies as well as server-side analytics for the users, and (d) data visualization services.