The Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory (CLARREO) mission will provide a calibration laboratory in orbit for the purpose of accurately measuring and attributing climate change. CLARREO measurements establish new climate change benchmarks with high absolute radiometric accuracy and high statistical confidence across a wide range of essential climate variables. CLARREO's inherently high absolute accuracy will be verified and traceable on orbit to Système Internationale (SI) units. The benchmarks established by CLARREO will be critical for assessing changes in the Earth system and climate model predictive capabilities for decades into the future as society works to meet the challenge of optimizing strategies for mitigating and adapting to climate change. The CLARREO benchmarks are derived from measurements of the Earth's thermal infrared spectrum (5–50 μm), the spectrum of solar radiation reflected by the Earth and its atmosphere (320–2300 nm), and radio occultation refractivity from which accurate temperature profiles are derived. The mission has the ability to provide new spectral fingerprints of climate change, as well as to provide the first orbiting radiometer with accuracy sufficient to serve as the reference transfer standard for other space sensors, in essence serving as a “NIST [National Institute of Standards and Technology] in orbit.” CLARREO will greatly improve the accuracy and relevance of a wide range of space-borne instruments for decadal climate change. Finally, CLARREO has developed new metrics and methods for determining the accuracy requirements of climate observations for a wide range of climate variables and uncertainty sources. These methods should be useful for improving our understanding of observing requirements for most climate change observations

No abstract

The climatic impact of CO2 and other greenhouse gases is usually quantified in terms of radiative forcing, calculated as the difference between estimates of the Earth's radiation field from pre-industrial and present-day concentrations of these gases. Radiative transfer models calculate that the increase in CO2 since 1750 corresponds to a global annual-mean radiative forcing at the tropopause of 1.82 ± 0.19 W m(-2) (ref. 2). However, despite widespread scientific discussion and modelling of the climate impacts of well-mixed greenhouse gases, there is little direct observational evidence of the radiative impact of increasing atmospheric CO2. Here we present observationally based evidence of clear-sky CO2 surface radiative forcing that is directly attributable to the increase, between 2000 and 2010, of 22 parts per million atmospheric CO2. The time series of this forcing at the two locations-the Southern Great Plains and the North Slope of Alaska-are derived from Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer spectra together with ancillary measurements and thoroughly corroborated radiative transfer calculations. The time series both show statistically significant trends of 0.2 W m(-2) per decade (with respective uncertainties of ±0.06 W m(-2) per decade and ±0.07 W m(-2) per decade) and have seasonal ranges of 0.1-0.2 W m(-2). This is approximately ten per cent of the trend in downwelling longwave radiation. These results confirm theoretical predictions of the atmospheric greenhouse effect due to anthropogenic emissions, and provide empirical evidence of how rising CO2 levels, mediated by temporal variations due to photosynthesis and respiration, are affecting the surface energy balance.

The mean state of the global atmospheric energy cycle is re‐examined using the two reanalysis datasets — NCEP2 and ERA40 (1979–2001). The general consistency between the two datasets suggests that the present estimates of the energy cycle are probably the most reliable ones. The comparison between the present and a previous study shows noticeable discrepancies in some of the energy components and conversion rates. The current estimate of the transformations from mean potential energy to mean kinetic energy C(PM, KM) further suggests that the near‐surface processes play an important role in the conversion rate C(PM, KM), along with the Ferrel cell and Hadley cells, which probably change the direction of the conversion rate C(PM, KM).

[1] Projected changes in the Earth system will likely be manifested in changes in reflected solar radiation. This paper introduces an operational Observational System Simulation Experiment (OSSE) to calculate the signals of future climate forcings and feedbacks in top-of-atmosphere reflectance spectra. The OSSE combines simulations from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report for the NCAR Community Climate System Model (CCSM) with the MODTRAN radiative transfer code to calculate reflectance spectra for simulations of current and future climatic conditions over the 21st century. The OSSE produces narrowband reflectances and broadband fluxes, the latter of which have been extensively validated against archived CCSM results. The shortwave reflectance spectra contain atmospheric features including signals from water vapor, liquid and ice clouds, and aerosols. The spectra are also strongly influenced by the surface bidirectional reflectance properties of predicted snow and sea ice and the climatological seasonal cycles of vegetation. By comparing and contrasting simulated reflectance spectra based on emissions scenarios with increasing projected and fixed present-day greenhouse gas and aerosol concentrations, we find that prescribed forcings from increases in anthropogenic sulfate and carbonaceous aerosols are detectable and are spatially confined to lower latitudes. Also, changes in the intertropical convergence zone and poleward shifts in the subsidence zones and the storm tracks are all detectable along with large changes in snow cover and sea ice fraction. These findings suggest that the proposed NASA Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory (CLARREO) mission to measure shortwave reflectance spectra may help elucidate climate forcings, responses, and feedbacks.