Identification

Title

A simulation study of thermospheric neutral winds over the MU radar

Abstract

The climatological thermospheric winds observed by the Shigaraki middle and upper atmosphere (MU) radar in East Asia are compared for the first time with simulation results from the National Center for Atmospheric Research Thermosphere-Ionosphere-Electrodynamics General Circulation Model (NCAR-TIEGCM). The comparisons show that the predicted meridional winds are in excellent agreement with the observations; their differences generally fall within 20 m/s except for the summer nighttime at high solar activity. A harmonic analysis of the observed and model meridional winds is carried out to extract the mean winds and the amplitudes and phases of diurnal, semidiurnal, and terdiurnal components. The model tidal waves are also in good agreement with the observed values except for the summer diurnal amplitude at high solar activity. Comparisons of the model electron densities with the radar observations suggest that the solar activity variation of the meridional winds can be mainly explained by the role of ion drag. Interestingly, the numerical simulations predict a feature not previously interpreted well: the diurnal amplitude and the mean wind depend nonlinearly on solar activity because the electron density saturates at high solar activity levels. It is further shown that both the observed and predicted diurnal phases remain almost stable at different solar activity levels, regardless of season.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d78s4q50

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

2007-04-20T00:00:00Z

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