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AGU: Geophysical Research Letters

 

Index Terms

  • Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Middle atmosphere—composition and chemistry
  • Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Pressure, density, and temperature
  • Meteorology and Atmospheric Dynamics: Remote sensing
  • Meteorology and Atmospheric Dynamics: Radiative processes

Abstract

SABER observations of mesospheric temperatures and comparisons with falling sphere measurements taken during the 2002 summer MaCWAVE campaign

Christopher J. Mertens

NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia, USA

Francis J. Schmidlin

NASA Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Virginia, USA

Richard A. Goldberg

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA

Ellis E. Remsberg

NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia, USA

W. Dean Pesnell

Nomad Research, Inc., Arnold, Maryland, USA

James M. Russell III

Hampton University, Hampton, Virginia, USA

Martin G. Mlynczak

NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia, USA

Manuel López-Puertas

Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia, CSIC, Granada, Spain

Peter P. Wintersteiner

ARCON Corporation, Waltham, Massachusetts, USA

Richard H. Picard

Air Force Research Laboratories, Hanscom AFB, Massachusetts, USA

Jeremy R. Winick

Air Force Research Laboratories, Hanscom AFB, Massachusetts, USA

Larry L. Gordley

G & A Technical Software, Newport News, Virginia, USA

The SABER instrument was launched onboard the TIMED satellite in December 2001. Vertical profiles of kinetic temperature (Tk) are derived from broadband measurements of CO2 15 μm limb emission, in combination with measurements of CO2 4.3 μm limb emission used to derive CO2 volume mixing ratio (vmr). Infrared emission from the CO2 ro-vibrational bands are in non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (non-LTE) in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT), requiring new radiation transfer and retrieval methods. In this paper we focus on Tk and show some of the first SABER observations of MLT Tk and compare SABER Tk profiles with rocket falling sphere (FS) measurements taken during the 2002 summer MaCWAVE campaign at Andøya, Norway (69°N, 16°E). The comparisons are very encouraging and demonstrate a significant advance in satellite remote sensing of MLT limb emission and the ability to retrieve Tk under extreme non-LTE conditions.

Received 11 September 2003; accepted 18 December 2003; published 5 February 2004.

Citation: Mertens, C. J., et al. (2004), SABER observations of mesospheric temperatures and comparisons with falling sphere measurements taken during the 2002 summer MaCWAVE campaign, Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, L03105, doi:10.1029/2003GL018605.

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