Identification

Title

Large amplitude perturbations in mesospheric OH Meinel and 87-Km Na lidar temperatures around the autumnal equinox

Abstract

Two high-precision CEDAR instruments, an OH Mesospheric Temperature Mapper (MTM) and a Na Temperature Lidar, have been used to investigate seasonal variability in the mid-latitude temperature at ~87 km altitude over the western USA. Here we report the observation of a large perturbation in mesospheric temperature that occurs shortly after the autumnal equinox in close association with the penetration of planetary-wave energy from the troposphere into the mesosphere. This perturbation has been observed on three occasions and exhibits a departure of up to ~25-30 K from the nominal seasonal trend during a disturbed period of ~2 weeks. Such behavior represents a dramatic transient departure from the seasonal trend expected on the basis of current empirical models. These novel results coupled with a recent TIME-GCM modeling study [Liu et al., 2000] provide important insight into the role of planetary waves in mesospheric variability during the equinox periods.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d71r6r5n

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

2001-05-01T00:00:00Z

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

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