A HORIZONTAL ATMOSPHERIC-TEMPERATURE SOUNDER - APPLICATIONS TO REMOTE-SENSING OF ATMOSPHERIC HAZARDS

Several atmospheric hazards, including wind shear, clear-air turbulenc e, and wake vortices cause special problems for aircraft. These phenom ena are usually characterized by a change in temperature relative to a mbient, which may be detected by a millimeter wave radiometer operatin g on an absorption line in the atmosphere. Because of available compon entry with excellent performance and relative freedom from interferenc e by water vapor, the family of oxygen absorptions centered near 60 GH z is considered the best atmospheric feature on which the design of su ch an instrument could be based. This paper describes a multi-channel radiometer operating near 60 GHz which should be capable of detecting the hazards mentioned above as well as other potential dangers such as the passage of strong fronts and other severe weather. It is shown th at 'a carefully designed instrument will be capable of measuring range to a hazard to an accuracy of about 5 percent and temperature differe nce to an accuracy of approximately half the actual measured differenc e, depending on range and temperature. An actual design is proposed, a nd graphs of expected performance are included.