An experimental campaign in Antarctica for the calibration of low-frequency space-borne radiometers

The quality of microwave space-borne data is a key issue that can be dealt only with the pre-launch calibration of the instruments, together with a comprehensive follow-up of post-launch calibration and validation experiments. The possibility of introducing into the calibration procedure the observation of an external independent target, whose characteristics are not related to the system on board the satellite, represents an attractive opportunity. A good candidate as calibration target is the Antarctic area, which has suitable size, structure, spatial homogeneity and temporal thermal stability. With a view to the launching of new low-frequency sensors, an experimental activity to investigate the emission characteristics of the ice sheet with ground based radiometers was carried out at Dome-C Antarctica. In this paper we describe the preparation activities related to the calibration of the instruments.