CHIRP Funded $4.5M by NASA Instrument Incubator Program, Brings Unprecedented Precision to Climate Change Studies

A new award of $4.5M is set to fund CHIRP, the CHanneled Infrared Polarimeter, a compact tool that can provide scientists with extremely accurate data essential, and previously unattainable across all conditions, for long-term climate change modeling. Principal Investigator (PI) Meredith Kupinski, associate professor of optical sciences at the Wyant College of Optical Sciences, and Science PI Sylvia Sullivan, assistant professor of chemical and environmental engineering at the College of Engineering, are leading the project as part of NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) Instrument Incubator Program (IIP). NASA Press Release. The Instrument Incubator Program funds novel instruments, like CHIRP, to launch new technologies for future Earth-observing missions focused on pursuing pressing Earth science phenomena. 

CHIRP is made possible by a team of experts and novel technologies: metasurface polarization optics by Noah Rubin from the University of California, San Diego; HOT-BIRD infrared detection by David Ting and his co-workers; and metasurface fabrication by Tobias Wenger from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Additionally, the team finds support from graduate students and scientists across these institutions. This collaboration strengthens and perpetuates knowledge in polarization, advanced infrared detectors, cloud microphysics, and polarimetric testing.

Clouds remain a major source of uncertainty in climate models; ice cloud properties are especially poorly constrained. Current cloud observations and climate models involve a wide range of microphysical and optical assumptions on ice particles. In particular, ice water path has been used as a tuning parameter in climate models to balance the top-of-atmosphere radiation budget. A lack of accurate ice cloud observational constraints in climate models can lead to significant uncertainty in projected warming, circulation, and precipitation shifts for coming decades. NASA’s Earth Science Focus Areas in Atmospheric Composition and Climate Variability solicit a better understanding of processes related to the dynamics and microphysical properties of aerosols and clouds under climate change. Additional polarimetric information from ice cloud scattering in long-wave thermal infrared is particularly useful for understanding ice cloud lifetime, microphysical evolution, and interaction with aerosols. Even in the atmosphere’s coldest ice clouds below 200K CHIRP will be designed to produce scientifically relevant observations.

CHIRP is inspired by the success of the InfraRed Channeled SpectroPolarimeter (IRCSP) at Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) led by Dong Wu who is continuing to work with the CHIRP team. IRCSP used commercially available detector and polarization technologies to perform high-altitude balloon observations of thermal polarization.

Kupinski shared plans for CHIRP in the future, “The compactness of CHIRP will enable deployment of these radiometer-polarimeters on future space-flight missions, or a constellation of smaller systems.” A three-year project, the CHIRP team will design and test a prototype to develop the technology towards flight deployment.