An airborne Millimeter-wave Imaging Radiometer for cloud, precipitation, and atmospheric water vapor studies

Abstract

A six-channel airborne total-power Millimeter-wave Imaging Radiometer (MIR) was recently built to provide measurements of atmospheric water vapor, clouds, and precipitation. The instrument is a cross-track scanner that has a 3-dB beamwidth of 3.5̈ and an angular swath of 100°. It measures radiation at the frequencies of 89, 150, 183.3 ± 1, 183.3 ± 3, 183.3 ± 7, and 220 GHz. The inclusion of the 220-GHz receiver makes this instrument unique; no other instrument has made atmospheric radiation measurements using this combination of frequencies. The temperature sensitivities ΔT, based on the actual flight data with a 6.8-ms integration time, are found to be 0.44, 0.44, 1.31, 1.30, 1.02, and 1.07 K. The instrument has two external calibration loads maintained at the temperatures of 330 and 250 K (the ambient temperature at an aircraft altitude of 20 km). These calibration load temperatures are monitored precisely so that the radiometric measurements of the instrument could be made to better than 1 K of accuracy in the brightness temperature range of 240-300 K. Measurements made with a calibration target emmersed in liquid nitrogen indicate a measurement accuracy of 2-4 K for brightness temperatures below 100 K. The instrument has flown successfully aboard the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) ER-2 aircraft for more than 130 h. This paper is an overview of the system design, calibration, and measurement capabilities.