CLARREO Pathfinder Mission: Enabling Faster Observation of Climate Change

Abstract:

CLARREO (Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory) is a Decadal Survey Tier 1 mission designed to accelerate the observation of global climate change by increasing the accuracy of reflected solar and infrared instruments by a factor of 5 to 10 over current instruments in space. The CLARREO mission has also been requested by the WMO GSICS (Global Space-based Inter-Calibration System) to serve as its reference calibration source. CLARREO will provide an in-orbit high spectral resolution SI transfer standard for up to 40 orbiting sensors across the entire infrared and reflected solar spectrum. These instruments include VIIRS, CrIS, IASI, CERES, Landsat, Sentinel MSI and other land imagers, as well as the constellation of geostationary imagers and sounders. A CLARREO Pathfinder mission on the International Space Station is included in the Presidents FY2016 budget for launch in late 2019 or 2020. The presentation will update the Pathfinder mission status including advances in understanding instrument accuracy requirements and reference intercalibration using the ISS orbit sampling. The presentation will also demonstrate the ability of more accurate observations to shorten the time required to observe anthropogenic climate change, thereby narrowing uncertainties in future climate change and allowing more efficient societal response planning.