$4.5M NASA award advances climate change modeling technology
The CHIRP – Channeled Infrared Polarimeter – is geared to collecting more accurate data from ice clouds (such as these cirrus formations off the coast of Chile) to better predict global climate change. (Image credit: NASA)
Thanks to $4.5 million from NASA, a University of Arizona engineer and optical scientist are developing a compact tool – called CHIRP, or CHanneled Infrared Polarimeter – that delivers better data on ice crystals for climate change modeling.
Principal Investigator Meredith Kupinski, associate professor of optical sciences at the Wyant College of Optical Sciences, and science principal investigator Sylvia Sullivan, assistant professor of CHEE at the College of Engineering, are leading the project as part of NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office Instrument Incubator Program.
Clouds remain a major source of uncertainty in climate models. Their properties can either provide a cooling effect by reflecting the sun’s rays away from Earth or contribute to warming by absorbing radiation released from the Earth’s surface.
A lack of accurate ice cloud observational data in climate models can lead to significant uncertainty in projected warming, circulation, and precipitation shifts for the coming decades.
“Efforts like this one, which join modeling and observational capabilities, are key to making progress in our projections of climate change,” Sullivan said.