Identification

Title

Transport of nitric oxide in the winter mesosphere and lower thermosphere

Abstract

Nitric oxide (NO) plays key roles both in thermospheric energetics and upper‐lower atmosphere coupling. However, mesospheric NO in the polar night region has often been underestimated in whole atmosphere models, and the exact causes are not well understood. Recent high‐resolution (HR) WACCM‐X simulations show significant increase in NO in the polar night, and our analysis reveals distinct differences in the vertical transport between the HR and coarse resolution (CR) simulations: The residual mean vertical wind in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) region displays mesoscale flow channels that are strong and alternate between upward and downward directions in the former, with large net downward transport over the polar region. In the latter it is much weaker and even upward over large latitude ranges. Moreover, the resolved waves in the HR simulations induce downward eddy transport of NO in the MLT much stronger than the parameterized diffusion in CR simulations.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d76114pb

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2025-02-16T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

<span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;font-style:normal;" data-sheets-root="1">Copyright author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.</span>

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2025-07-10T19:54:20.831005

Metadata language

eng; USA