Achieving Satellite Instrument Calibration for Climate Change (ASIC3)
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Achieving Satellite Instrument Calibration for Climate Change (ASIC3) Report of a Workshop Organized by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Institute of Standards and Technology National Aeronautics and Space Administration National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System-Integrated Program Offi ce Space Dynamics Laboratory of Utah State University At the National Conference Center, Lansdowne, VA, May 16-18, 2006 Edited by George Ohring Contributors James G. Anderson Philip Ardanuy Gail Bingham James Butler Changyong Cao Raju Datla John Dykema William Emery Lawrence Flynn Gerald Fraser Mitchell Goldberg Greg Kopp Toshio Iguchi David Kunkee Stephen Leroy Laury Miller David Pollock Hank Revercomb Scott Shipley Karen St. Germain Tom Stone Joe Tansock Alan Thurgood David Tobin Stephen Ungar Bruce Wielicki David Winker Jack Xiong Fuzhong Weng 2007 Contents Executive Summary................................................................................................................. 1 Background.................................................................................................................. 1 Workshop Organization................................................................................................ 2 Overarching Recommendations................................................................................... 3 Additional Recommendations...................................................................................... 4 Benefi ts........................................................................................................................ 5 1 Introduction.................................................................................................................. 7 2 Motivation For Authoritative Climate Observations...................................................... 11 3 Goals and Attributes of a Climate Monitoring System.................................................. 15 3.1 Goals................................................................................................................ 15 3.2 Attributes.......................................................................................................... 16 4 Infrared Instruments..................................................................................................... 23 4.1 Introduction and Overarching Goal.................................................................. 23 4.2 The Role of Infrared Radiance Observations in Climate Studies..................... 23 4.3 Current Status and Impediments to Progress.................................................. 24 4.4 The Challenge .................................................................................................. 26 4.5 Recommendations to Accelerate Progress...................................................... 27 5 Ultraviolet, Visible, and Near-Infrared Instruments...................................................... 33 5.1 Introduction...................................................................................................... 33 5.2 Current Status .................................................................................................. 34 5.3 Impediments to Progress................................................................................. 45 5.4 Recommendations to Accelerate Progress...................................................... 46 6 Microwave Instruments............................................................................................... 49 6.1 Introduction....................................................................................................... 49 6.2 Current Status.................................................................................................. 49 6.3 Impediments to Progress................................................................................. 53 6.4 Recommendations to Accelerate Progress...................................................... 56 7 Broadband Instruments................................................................................................ 59 7.1 Incoming Broadband Radiation (Total Solar Irradiance)................................... 59 7.2 Total Solar Irradiance: Current Capabilities and Climate Data Record Requirements......................... 59 7.3 Total Solar Irradiance: Impediments to Progress............................................. 61 7.4 Total Solar Irradiance: Recommendations to Accelerate Progress.................. 62 7.5 Outgoing Broadband Radiation........................................................................ 63 7.6 Outgoing Broadband Radiation: Current Capabilities and Climate Data Record Requirements......................... 64 7.7 Outgoing Broadband Radiation: Impediments to Progress.............................. 73 7.8 Outgoing Broadband Radiation: Recommendations to Accelerate Progress...................................................... 73 8 Active Instruments........................................................................................................ 79 8.1 Introduction....................................................................................................... 79 8.2 Current Status and Impediments to Progress.................................................. 79 8.3 Recommendations to Accelerate Progress...................................................... 86 9 Intercalibration of Instruments...................................................................................... 89 9.1 Introduction....................................................................................................... 89 9.2 Current Status.................................................................................................. 89 9.3 Impediments to Progress.................................................................................. 94 9.4 Recommendations to Accelerate Progress....................................................... 95 10 Roadmap for Establishing a National Center for Calibration (NCC)............................. 99 10.1 Introduction....................................................................................................... 99 10.2 Grand Environmental Observing Challenges................................................... 100 10.3 The Nature of the Problem............................................................................... 101 10.4 The Solution: The National Center for Calibration (NCC)................................. 104 10.5 NCC Technology Areas..................................................................................... 107 10.6 NCC Research and Development Program...................................................... 110 10.7 NCC Performance Targets................................................................................ 111 10.8 Benefi ts to the User Community and Partner Agencies.................................... 113 Appendix A: Defi tnitions of Measurement Uncertainty Quantities............................................ 115 Appendix B: The Critical Role of Spectral Resolution to the Achievement of Climate Objectives............................................................................................................... 121 Appendix C: Relationship Between a Spectrometer and a Filter Radiometer.......................... 127 Acknowledgements.................................................................................................................. 131 References............................................................................................................................... 133 List of Acronyms and Abbreviations......................................................................................... 139 Workshop Participants List....................................................................................................... 143 Executive Summary Background Current satellite systems are, for the most part, not designed to detect the small trends associated with global climate change—an extremely demanding measurement challenge. The trends are indeed tiny, especially in comparison with those of day to day weather fl uctuations or even seasonal to inter-annual climate variations. The Table below, based on analyses performed at a previous Workshop on satellites and climate change (Ohring et al., 2004), shows a sample of estimates of expected decadal changes. Table 1 Expected Decadal Changes (Ohring et al., 2004) For example, the anticipated global temperature change per decade is about 0.2 K. This change is only about 1/10th of typical ENSO temperature variations, and as low as 1/50th of temperature changes of weather events. Measuring these climate change signals from space requires extremely well-calibrated observations to attain the needed high accuracy and stability. Current long-term climate data records are based mainly on the observations of the operational satellite sys- tems. These satellites are designed primarily to provide measurements for short-term weather and environmental prediction. Instrument calibrations lack traceability to International Standards (SI) units, sensors and onboard calibration sources degrade in orbit, long term data sets must be stitched together from a series of overlapping satellite observations, orbital drift—leading to a changing time of satellite observing time during the satellite’s lifetime—introduces artifacts into long term time series, and, most importantly, insuffi cient attention is paid to pre- and post-launch