Chilbolton

Radar at 4 frequencies, lidar, microwave radiometer and meteorological measurements

Instruments

Radars (S, C, Ka W-band), lidar, microwave radiometer and meteorological measurements

Authors

Link

https://www.chilbolton.stfc.ac.uk

Papers

Illingworth, A. J., D. Cimini, C. Gaffard, M. Haeffelin, V. Lehmann, U. Löhnert, E. J. O’Connor, and D. Ruffieux, 2015: Exploiting Existing Ground-Based Remote Sensing Networks to Improve High-Resolution Weather Forecasts. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 96, 2107–2125, https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00283.1.

Goddard,J.D.Eastment,andM.Thurai. Thechilboltonadvancedmeteorologicalradar:atoolformultidisciplinary583atmosphericresearch.ElectronicsCommunicationEngineeringJournal,6(2):77–86,1994.doi:10.1049/ecej:19940205.

Chilbolton Observatory is home to a wide range of science facilities covering research in atmospheric science, radiocommunications, astronomy, space science and technology.

​Chilbolton Observatory hosts part of the Atmospheric Measurement and Observation Facility (AMOF), with a particular focus on state-of-the-art radar instrumentation. The site is home to the world's largest fully steerable meteorological radar, the Chilbolton Advanced Meteorological Radar (CAMRa). Other facilities include cloud radars, lidars, radiometers and surface meteorological instruments. Continuous observations form part of a long-term measurement programme (Chilbolton Atmospheric Observatory) and live data from Chilbolton are showcased on the Chilbolton Weather Web.

The Space Monitoring Facility harnesses the power of the 25m antenna to track and characterize Earth orbiting satellites.

The RAL Space Satellite Ground Station has 4.5m and 6.1m antennas at Chilbolton, in addition to further antennas at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.

Since 2010 Chilbolton Observatory has been home to LOFAR-UK, part of the Europe-wide LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR) radio telescope.

Chilbolton Observatory is part of the STFC. The facilities at Chilbolton are run by the Chilbolton Group of RAL Space at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.

Atmospheric science activities are funded largely through the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), and are managed through the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS).​​​

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Dates