Identification

Title

Temporal variations of atomic oxygen in the upper mesosphere from SABER

Abstract

One of the atmospheric constituents that can be retrieved from observations by the Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry (SABER) instrument on the Thermosphere-Ionosphere-Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) satellite is atomic oxygen in the upper mesosphere. Atomic oxygen can be determined during both day and night using two different techniques that both rely on ozone chemistry. The O concentrations retrieved from SABER data are higher by a factor of 2–5 compared to concentrations determined from other measurements and techniques and compiled in current empirical models. This paper presents variability of atomic oxygen with a focus on the diurnal cycle in low latitudes and the seasonal cycle of daily mean atomic oxygen globally. The results show a large diurnal variation, ranging from a factor of 2 to more than a factor of 10, of atomic oxygen near the equator. The relative magnitude varies with season (larger near the equinoxes) and with altitude (largest near 85 km). Vertical transport by the migrating diurnal tide explains the observed variation. The semiannual variation in tidal amplitude affects the seasonal variation of daily average atomic oxygen, which likely indicates that there is irreversible transport by the tides. At high latitudes, the atomic oxygen variation is characterized by wintertime maxima over the altitude range 80–95 km and summertime maxima above. The wintertime peaks are associated with the downwelling from the mean circulation and are particularly strong in late winter of 2004, 2006, and 2009, responding to the unusual dynamical situations in those years.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7vx0h0d

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

2010-09-23T00:00:00Z

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