On Monday Dr Nigel Fox demonstrated the new interactive model of the remarkable TRUTHS satellite. This is one of the most impressive Scientific instruments to be modelled in Second Life and it is being unveiled in Second Life to an audience at the United Nations Climate Change meeting in Bali.

ABOUT VIRTUAL BALI

OneWorld.net, the civil society portal, has set up a Virtual Bali on Second Life, for residents to come together and interview representatives from the different countries and organisations attending the United Nations Climate Change event in Bali.

Daniel Nelson, is streamed live from Bali onto the specially created OneClimate island each day, from 12.30pm GMT, in conversation with conference goers about the progress being made.

ABOUT TRUTHS

TRUTHS is a concept designed at NPL, the UK national measurement institute, to help improve the accuracy and traceability of Earth Observation data used in Climate Models to predict Climate Change, and has wide support in the international science community.

ABOUT TRUTHS IN SECOND LIFE

The TRUTHS satellite contains two sets of instruments:

1/ to measure the Sun – total radiation arriving at the top of the Earth's atmosphere, and spectrally resolved

2/ to measure the Earth – reflected sunlight viewed through the Earth's atmosphere

The animations show these instruments in operation. However, the principle objective of this animation is to illustrate the novel in-flight calibration concept of TRUTHS which allow an improvement in accuracy of a factor of ten over other similar sensors.

MORE ON TRUTHS

The proposed Traceable Radiometry Underpinning Terrestrial- and Helio-Studies (TRUTHS) mission is unique in establishing high accuracy SI traceable data in-flight - a “calibration laboratory in space”. It also offers a novel approach to the provision of key scientific data with unprecedented radiometric accuracy for Earth Observation (EO) and solar studies, which will also establish well-calibrated reference targets/standards to support other Earth Observation missions.

Recently the need for such a mission has been specifically highlighted by the United Nations GCOS (Global Climate Observing System) and WMO GSICS (Global Satellite Inter-Calibration System) committees, culminating in the call for a specific mission by the, US Academy of sciences called CLARREO (Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory) of which TRUTHS is the likely component to meet the solar spectral domain

TRUTHS will be the first satellite mission to calibrate its EO instrumentation directly to SI in orbit, overcoming the usual uncertainties associated with drifts of sensor gain and spectral shape by using an electrical rather than an optical standard as the basis of its calibration. The range of instruments flown as part of the payload will also provide accurate input data to improve atmospheric radiative transfer codes by anchoring boundary conditions, through simultaneous measurements of aerosols, particulates and radiances at various heights. Therefore, TRUTHS will significantly improve the performance and accuracy of EO missions with broad global or operational aims, as well as more dedicated missions.