Development of a 22 GHz ground-based spectrometer for middle atmospheric water vapour monitoring

AbstractThe water Vapour Emission SPectrometer for Antarctica at 22 GHz (VESPA-22) has been designed for long-term middle atmospheric climate change monitoring and satellite data validation. It observes the water vapour spectral line at 22.235 GHz using the balanced beam-switching technique. The rec...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:European Journal of Remote Sensing
Main Authors: Pietro Paolo Bertagnolio, Giovanni Muscari, James Baskaradas
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2012
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.openaccessrepository.it/record/70814
https://doi.org/10.5721/eujrs20124506
Description
Summary:AbstractThe water Vapour Emission SPectrometer for Antarctica at 22 GHz (VESPA-22) has been designed for long-term middle atmospheric climate change monitoring and satellite data validation. It observes the water vapour spectral line at 22.235 GHz using the balanced beam-switching technique. The receiver antenna has been characterized, showing an HPBW of 3.5° and a sidelobe level 40 dB below the main lobe. The receiver front-end has a total gain of 105 dB and a LNA noise temperature of 125 K. A FFT spectrometer (bandwidth 1 GHz, resolution 63 kHz) will be used as back-end, allowing the retrieval of H2O concentration profiles in the 20 to 80 km altitude range. The control I/O interface is based on reconfigurable hardware (USB-CPLD).