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Abstract
There is a thirst in the weather and climate research community for measurements of fields of humidity and temperature for storm studies. But technologies that would get us these measurements are lacking. For information to travel over long distances in nearly all weather as is needed when taking near-horizontal measurements, only microwave-based technologies can be used. And to take measurements over mesoscale areas implies an instrument with a narrow beamwidth and a short dwell time.
In an attempt to obtain such measurements, we have designed and developed a prototype of a water-vapour band (16-27 GHz) scanning radiometer with a narrow-beam antenna (1.3°). It is designed to make crude PPIs of humidity and possibly temperature at low elevations, much like scanning radars are designed to make PPIs of reflectivity and Doppler velocity. It can also make measurements of integrated liquid water content. This “mesoscale radiometer” opens new doors to make temperature and especially humidity field measurements at the mesoscale, complementing the precipitation and wind data collected by radar.
In this presentation, we will describe the instrument, explain how the required scanning performance in terms of speed and angular resolution shaped its design, and show the types of measurements that can be achieved with it.