SOLID

First European Comprehensive SOLar Irradiance Data exploitation

 Partecipanti

Mappa

 Word cloud

Esplora la "nuvola delle parole (Word Cloud) per avere un'idea di massima del progetto.

 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'Variations of solar irradiance are the most important natural factor in the terrestrial climate and as such, the time dependent spectral solar irradiance is a crucial input to any climate modelling. There have been previous efforts to compile solar irradiance but it is still uncertain by how much the spectral and total solar irradiance changed on yearly, decadal and longer time scales. Observations of irradiance data exist in numerous disperse data sets. A major objective of the SOLID effort is to analyse and merge the complete set of European irradiance data, complemented by archive data that include data from non-European missions. The SOLID-consortium unifies representatives from all European solar space experiments and European teams specialized in multi-wavelength solar image processing. It also includes the European groups involved in irradiance modelling and reconstruction. They will work with two different state of the art approaches to produce reconstructed spectral and total solar irradiance data as a function of time. These results are used to bridge gaps in time and wavelength coverage of the observational data. This will allow the SOLID team to reduce the uncertainties in the irradiance time series - an important requirement by the climate community - and to provide uniform data sets of modelled and observed solar irradiance data from the beginning of the space era to the present including proper error and uncertainty estimates. Climate research needs these data sets and therefore, the primary benefit is for the climate community, but the stellar community, planetary, lunar, and ionospheric researchers are also interested in having at their disposition incident radiation of the Sun. The proposing team realizes a wide international synergy in solar physics from 7 European countries, and collaborators from the US, complemented by representatives from the climate community, who will accompany their research work with wide dissemination activity.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

The Sun's warmth and light make life on Earth as we know it possible. Assimilation of recent observations and creation of models going back to the past promise a more accurate representation of the role of solar irradiance in climate change.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Only in recent decades have scientists begun to study the Sun's radiation with precision. Changes in solar radiation have direct impact on global climate but observations are scattered in disperse data sets. Spatially and temporally accurate data regarding solar irradiance are imperative to untangling the role of human activities in global climate change.

EU funding of the project 'First European comprehensive solar irradiance data exploitation' (http://projects.pmodwrc.ch/solid/ (SOLID)) is supporting scientists who are merging data sets. Representatives of all European solar space experiments, European teams specialising in solar image processing and European groups involved in irradiance modelling are on board. Researchers are using state of the art methodologies to bridge gaps in times and wavelengths and reduce associated uncertainties.

A pre-processing scheme defined during this reporting period takes care of outliers, data gaps and noise to reduce uncertainty and enhance accuracy. Along the same lines, the team identified a procedure to detect trends introduced randomly or by the recording instrumentation itself.

Major effort was put into solar image processing and models of solar spectral irradiance. The team delivered a complete solar spectral irradiance database based entirely on multi-wavelength solar radio observations from 1957 as the proxies. The project database on the website is continuously updated and enables visualisation of various irradiance and proxy data (http://projects.pmodwrc.ch/solid-visualization/makeover/).

Simulating solar magnetograms will help reconstruct solar irradiance over the last century. These are produced by sunspots, the daily record of which is available back to 1874. Work is underway. In the meantime, with an eye to meeting end-user needs, scientists surveyed climate research communities regarding wish lists with respect to solar irradiance datasets.

SOLID is making a tremendous contribution to the scientific community by combining all existing observations of solar spectral irradiance and filling gaps through modelling and reconstruction. The final outcomes will cover the entire spectrum of solar wavelengths. Enhanced accuracy will help determine the role of human activities in global warming and provide valuable resources to climate, star and space weather scientists.