Atmospheric transmission at submillimetre wavelengths from Mauna Kea

The submillimetre atmospheric transmission spectrum above Mauna Kea has bee n measured at a resolution of 0.005 cm(-1) (150 MHz) with a Fourier transfo rm spectrometer at the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, using the Sun as a so urce. Column abundances of O-2, H2O and O-3 determined from these spectra a re found to be in excellent agreement with independent measurements. The de rived column abundances have been used as inputs to the atmospheric spectra l modelling program fascod. The synthetic transmission spectrum is found to be in excellent agreement with the measured spectrum, and provides a templ ate for submillimetre observations from the JCMT.