Review of NOAA Working Group: Report on Long-Term Satellite Total Solar Irradiance Observation
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- Synopsis
-
Solar irradiance provides the only significant source of energy input to the climate system and its variability has the potential to either mitigate or exacerbate anthropogenic change. Maintaining an unbroken record of Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) is critical in resolving ongoing debates regarding the potential role of solar variability in influencing Earth’s climate.
Space-borne instruments have acquired TSI data since 1978. Currently, the best calibrated and lowest noise source of TSI measurements is the Total Irradiance Monitor (TIM) onboard NASA’s Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE). These TIM-era data are of higher quality than the older data in the full record. Thus, the TSI climate data record (CDR) has two components. There is the shorter, but more accurate record of the TIM era and the full (33+ year) space-based TSI measurement record. Both are important and require preservation.
SORCE is well past its design life and is encountering significant battery degradation. The Total Solar Irradiance Sensor (TSIS), a dual-instrument package that will be flown on the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) Free Flyer 1 (FF-1) mission to continue the TSI record, is not scheduled to launch until late 2016 or early 2017, creating the potential for a data gap. Unfortunately, NASA’s Glory spacecraft, which carried a TIM that would have provided a gap filler, failed to reach orbit on March 4, 2011. Without a mitigation plan, the continuity of both data records (the TIM-era and full record) is threatened.
- Copyright:
- 2013
Book Details
- Book Quality:
- Publisher Quality
- ISBN-13:
- 9780309287630
- Related ISBNs:
- 9780309287647
- Publisher:
- The National Academies Press
- Date of Addition:
- 12/13/18
- Copyrighted By:
- the National Academy of Sciences
- Adult content:
- No
- Language:
- English
- Has Image Descriptions:
- No
- Categories:
- Nonfiction, Science, Technology
- Submitted By:
- Bookshare Staff
- Usage Restrictions:
- This is a copyrighted book.