Ongoing activities at LMD to prepare the CH4 space lidar mission MERLIN

Fabien Gibert; Raymond Armante; Vincent Cassé; Olivier Chomette; Cyril Crevoisier; Thibault Delahaye; Dimitri Edouart; Frédéric Nahan; Ha Tran

doi:10.1051/epjconf/202636208011

Open Access

Issue		EPJ Web Conf. Volume 362, 2026 31^st International Laser Radar Conference (ILRC 31) Held Together with the 22^nd Coherent Laser Radar Conference (CLRC 22)


Article Number		08011
Number of page(s)		4
Section		Current and Future Space Lidar Missions
DOI		https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/202636208011
Published online		09 April 2026

EPJ Web of Conferences 362, 08011 (2026)
https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/202636208011

Ongoing activities at LMD to prepare the CH₄ space lidar mission MERLIN

Fabien Gibert^a, Raymond Armante^a, Vincent Cassé^a, Olivier Chomette^a, Cyril Crevoisier^a, Thibault Delahaye^a, Dimitri Edouart^a, Frédéric Nahan^b and Ha Tran^a

^(a) Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (LMD/IPSL), École Polytechnique, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, Sorbonne Université, École Normale Supérieure, PSL Research University, CNRS, École des Ponts, 91128 Palaiseau, France
^(b) Magellium Paris, 92400 Courbevoie, France

Published online: 9 April 2026

Abstract

MERLIN (MEthane Remote LIdar missioN) is a space mission developed by France and Germany to monitor the atmospheric methane using an IPDA (Integrated Path Differential Absorption) lidar. The mission is scheduled for launch at the end of the decade. Currently, the LMD (Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique) is working on improving spectroscopy data, end-to-end modelling of the instrument to study the sensitivity of measurements to different sources of uncertainty, developing an inversion system to study the impact of certain data processing parameters, setting up measurement campaigns to better understand methane variability and fluxes, as well as developing a ground-based differential absorption lidar for CH₄ profiling.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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