Opacity measurements at Summit Camp on Greenland and PEARL in northern Canada with a 225 GHz tipping radiometer

摘要

We report the first measurements of 225 GHz atmospheric opacity at Summit Camp (Latitude 72°.57 N; Longitude38°.46 W; Altitude 3250 m) in Greenland and the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory(PEARL: Latitude 80°.05 N; Longitude 86°.42 W; Altitude 600 m) in Northern Canada with a tipping radiometer.Summit Camp and PEARL are research stations mostly interested in meteorology and geophysics, andthey are potentially excellent sites for astronomical observations at sub-millimeter wavelength. We purchaseda tipping radiometer from Radiometer Physics GmbH. After a test run at the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii,the radiometer was deployed to PEARL in February 2011, and relocated to Summit Camp in August 2011. Theatmospheric opacity has been monitored from February 14th to May 10th, 2011 at PEARL and since August2011 at Summit Camp. The median values of the measured opacity at PEARL ranged from 0.11 in February to 0.19 in May; Summit Camp varied in the range from 0.04 to 0.18 between August 2011 and May 2012. SummitCamp in Greenland is expected to be an excellent site for sub-millimeter and Terahertz astronomy, and we planto set up there a 12-m telescope for VLBI and single-dish observations.© (2012) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.