ABB has been awarded a contract by the Canadian Space Agency to carry out the conceptual development (Phase A) of the Thin Ice Clouds and Far InfraRed Emissions (TICFIRE) instrument. TICFIRE is an integral component of the High-altitude Aerosols, Water Vapour and Clouds (HAWC) satellite mission – a Canadian-led initiative focused on advancing climate science and environmental monitoring. In addition, ABB will support further technology development activities to be defined over the course of the project. Through its role in the initiative, ABB is helping to refine global climate monitoring capabilities.

The HAWC mission aims to deliver essential data to enhance forecasting of severe and extreme weather events, improve climate modeling, support air quality assessments, and aid in tracking natu-ral disasters such as wildfires, volcanic eruptions and intense rainfall. The mission will enable in-formed decision-making across sectors vital to human wellbeing, including health, agriculture, water resources, and biodiversity.

The TICFIRE infrared spectral imager will be designed to observe the upper atmosphere and advance scientific understanding of aerosol-cloud interactions – one of the most significant sources of uncer-tainty in climate modeling. The novel space instrument will allow scientists to measure how cold wa-ter vapor and its ice cloud variant block the incoming sun energy and the energy of the Earth attempt-ing to escape into space – Earth’s main cooling mechanism. Such measurements can only be carried out by placing a sensor above the atmosphere and observing it in infrared colors – and approach that has not been possible with previous technologies.

ABB secures Canadian Space Agency contract to develop climate instrument | GeoConnexion