TCTE3TSID: Daily Total Solar Irradiance from the TCTE/TIM Instrument

350 parts per million absolute accuracy characterizes the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) measurements in this final mission dataset. The TCTE3TSID product provides daily averaged solar constant data, normalized to 1 AU, collected by the Total Irradiance Monitor from December 2013 to June 2019. It serves as a calibration bridge and record of incident sunlight variability for Earth's atmosphere.

Use Cases

• Analyzing long-term solar variability trends based on daily and weekly averaged TSI measurements.
• Calibrating other solar irradiance datasets using the TCTE/TIM instrument's 10 ppm per year relative accuracy.
• Studying the solar cycle's influence on Earth's climate using the full-wavelength spectrum irradiance data.
• Establishing continuity between solar monitoring missions by leveraging the overlap period with SORCE TIM.

Strengths

• Provides the final and authoritative version (V004) of the TCTE mission data, superseding all previous releases.
• Instrument designed for high precision with a specified absolute accuracy of 350 ppm and long-term relative accuracy of 10 ppm per year.
• Covers a significant time range from mission start in December 2013 to end on June 30, 2019.

Limitations

• Data sampling frequency was reduced to weekly from May to December 2014, which the description states 'greatly subsample[s] the true solar variability, and thus have little value for solar research'.
• Column names and exact row counts are unspecified across all platform sources, limiting detailed structural understanding.
• Conflicting 'last updated' metadata exists between platforms (2019 vs. 2026), creating uncertainty about recent maintenance.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Collected by the Total Irradiance Monitor (TIM) instrument on the TCTE mission, an ambient temperature active cavity radiometer.

Time Range

2013-12 to 2019-06-30

Freshness

2026-04-09 21:51:53.310136

Geography

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