A millimeter wave radiometer is started operation at the Swedish Institute of Space Physics, Kiruna, Sweden. The location of the instrument (67.8 N, 20.4 E) allows continuous observation of the evolution of ozone and ozone related trace gases in the Arctic polar stratosphere. It is designed for measurements of thermal emission lines around 204 Ghz. At this frequency observations include of ozone, chlorine monoxide, nitrous oxide, and nitric acid.
With the millimetre wave radiometer at IRF, Kiruna, thermal emission lines of stratospheric trace gases are observed. The instrument consists of three parts: · the front end with the quasi-optical path of the beam, · the backend with the IF chains and the acousto-optical spectrometer (AOS), · the experiment control and data storage (PC). The millimetre wave measurements of ozone are hardly impaired by unfavourable weather conditions. These observations can be obtained for every day of the year whereas the faint line of ClO (about a factor 100 weaker than ozone) is at the detection limit if there is no chlorine activation in the probed air mass. However there is no other remote sensing method to obtain profiles of ClO in the stratosphere.
Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe Institut für Meteorologie und Klimaforschung (IMK)
Data are stored on NILU's database for Theseo projects.
The radiometer is built and operated in close collaboration with Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe Institut für Meteorologie und Klimaforschung (IMK)