Speaker
Description
I have updated the total solar irradiance (TSI) data from all three spaceflight Total Irradiance Monitors (TIMs) within the last year, improving the accuracies and stabilities of the SORCE, TCTE, and TSIS-1 TIM measurements. These are expected to be the final data versions for the SORCE and TCTE instruments, both of which have been decommissioned, having been replaced by the continuing TSIS–1/TIM. These refined datasets are being incorporated into updated TSI composites spanning the 48-year, uninterrupted spaceborne TSI measurement record, to which all long-term solar-irradiance reconstructions are tied. I will summarize these data updates, present the associated changes for each of the three instruments, and compare their latest data with those from other concurrent, on-orbit TSI instruments.
Using the updated data, I have performed a survey of TIM observations of solar flares having magnitudes greater than X4 from 2003 to the present. TSI measurements of flares are the only means of measuring the entire radiant solar-flare energies, and I will compare those to the integrated GOES x-ray energies for the largest flares measured. Such flare observations have relevance for space climate and can be compared in magnitude and frequency to flares on other stars, where full-spectrum measurements cannot currently be acquired.