An Active Microwave Limb Sounder for Profiling Water Vapor, Ozone, Temperature, Geopotential, Clouds, Isotopes and Stratospheric Winds

We summarize our findings on the performance of a radio occultation system operating at cm and mm wavelengths selected to profile atmospheric water, ozone and other constituents such as water isotopes as well as temperature, the geopotential of atmospheric pressure surfaces and clouds. Furthermore winds in the upper stratosphere can be determined from the Doppler shift of the line center. Our analysis indicates that such a system will yield dramatically higher vertical resolution, precision and accuracy than present and planned passive radiometric systems.

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