EarthCARE dry-run demonstration with EMORAL lidar

^(a) University of Warsaw, Faculty of Physics (UW), 02-093 Warsaw, Poland
^(b) Raymetrics – Lidar Systems S.A., Athens, Greece
^(c) Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU), Munich, Germany
^(d) Poznan University of Life Sciences (PULS), Pozdnan, Poland
^(e) National Observatory of Athens (NOA), Athens, Greece
^(f) National Institute of Research and Development for Optoelectronics (INOE), Măgurele, Romania Lead Author e-mail address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Published online: 9 April 2026

Abstract

The Opto-Electronics section (TEC-MME) at the European Space Research and Technology (ESTEC) of the European Space Agency (ESA) invested into the ESA Mobile Raman Lidar (EMORAL) to serve for Cal/Val missions. The lidar has been co-developed in a collaborative R&D effort of three research performing organizations (University of Warsaw, National Observatory of Athens, and Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich), and private sector companies (Raymetrics, Licel, Innolas). The current configuration places the EMORAL lidar operated by RS-Lab Team at University of Warsaw in the forefront of ground-based systems for Cal/Val missions and beyond. A set of new functionalities, such as broadband fluorescence and water vapor measurements, together with wavelength-dependent polarization, backscattering and extinction coefficients observations present highly desirable, state-of-art ensemble for near-real-time profiling. During campaigns conducted in different environments (urban, industrial, peatland, rural, mountainous) we collected exclusive sets of quality-assured high-level data products. Therefore, the EMORAL lidar is foreseen to serve as one of the core ESA assets for the upcoming EarthCARE Cal/Val activities.