The Development of an Airborne Infrared Interferometer for Meteorological Sounding Studies

Abstract

The United Kingdom Meteorological Office (UKMO) has developed an airborne interferometer to act as a simulator for future satellite-based infrared meteorological sounders. The Airborne Research Interferometer Evaluation System (ARIES) consists of a modified commercial interferometer mounted on the UKMO C-130 aircraft. The instrument is sensitive to the wavelength range 3.3–18 μm and has a maximum optical path difference of ±1.037 cm. This paper describes the design and performance of ARIES, discusses instrument calibration, and presents some preliminary results. An important problem associated with the use of the new generation of high-spectral resolution infrared meteorological sounders is that improvements need to be made to knowledge of atmospheric spectroscopy and radiative transfer. These improvements are necessary to extract the promised vertical and absolute resolution in temperature and humidity retrievals from these new high-spectral resolution sounders. By virtue of the extensive instrumentation that is available on the C-130 aircraft for observing and measuring the basic meteorological and atmospheric parameters (e.g., in situ temperature, humidity, and ozone), it is hoped that ARIES will be an important tool for use in studying this issue.