BackForwardInstrument:  TICFIRE 

Instrument details
Acronym TICFIRE
Full name Thin Ice Cloud in the Far InfraREd.
Purpose (1) To improve measurements of water-vapour concentration for low column amounts (2) To determine the contribution of Thin Ice Clouds to the energy balance and the role of their microphysical properties on atmospheric cooling
Short description

A nadir viewing 6 band radiometer from 7.5 to 50 microns (see table below) and an accompanying imager that performs limb view measurements and provides cloud vertical structure information.
Background

New development
Scanning Technique

Pushbroom 640 km swath horizontal, 30 km vertical
Resolution 10 km horizontal, 1 km in vertical.
Coverage / Cycle Global coverage in 2.2 days
Mass 30 kg Power 29 W Data Rate 31.4 kbits/sec

 

Providing Agency CSA
Instrument Maturity Flown on an R&D satellite
Utilization Period: 2031 to 2036
Last update: 2025-03-06
Detailed characteristics
Chan

Wavelength

 Footprint
1 7.9-9.5 µm 10km 
2 10-12 µm 10km 
3 12-14 µm 10km 
4 17.25-19.75 µm 10km 
5 22.5-27.5 µm 10km 
6 30-50 µm 10km 
Satellites this instrument is flying on

Note: a red tag indicates satellites no longer operational, a green tag indicates operational satellites, a blue tag indicates future satellites

Instrument classification
  • Earth observation instrument
  • Passive optical radiometer or spectrometer
  • Broadband Earth radiation radiometer
WIGOS Subcomponents
  • Subcomponent 1
  • Absolutely calibrated broadband radiometers, and TSI and SSI radiometers
  • Broadband radiometer (for ERB)
Mission objectives
Primary mission objectives
  • Cloud ice
  • Integrated Water Vapour (IWV)
Evaluation of Measurements

The following list indicates which measurements can typically be retrieved from this category of instrument. To see a full Gap Analysis by Variable, click on the respective variable.

Note: table can be sorted by clicking on the column headers
Note: * Primary mission objective.