A New Airborne Submillimetre Demonstrator
Stuart, Fox; Lee, Clare; Harlow, Chawn; Rule, Ian; King, Rob; Rogers, Stuart
Met Office, UNITED KINGDOM

ISMAR (International SubMillimetre Airborne Radiometer) is a new aircraft remote sensing instrument, with heterodyne receivers from 118 to 664GHz. It has been funded by the Met Office and ESA, and has been designed to allow additional channels to be added, including 875GHz.

Submillimetre frequencies are very sensitive to ice and can provide direct retrievals of cloud ice water path which is an important parameter in General Circulation models. These frequencies can also be used to study mixed phase cloud properties and snow surface properties in the windows channels. ISMAR can be used as a satellite demonstrator as well as for specific scientific case studies. It will be used in the preparation of the usage of Ice Cloud Imager (ICI) satellite data and for calibration/validation post-launch.

The instrument has been installed on the FAAM Bae-146 aircraft (www.faam.ac.uk). Here we will discuss the instrument performance and the future aircraft campaign plans.