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AGU: Geophysical Research Letters

 

Index Terms

  • Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Middle atmosphere—energy deposition
  • Meteorology and Atmospheric Dynamics: Mesospheric dynamics
  • Meteorology and Atmospheric Dynamics: Middle atmosphere dynamics
  • Meteorology and Atmospheric Dynamics: Turbulence
  • Meteorology and Atmospheric Dynamics: Waves and tides

Abstract

GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 31, L24S06, 5 PP., 2004
doi:10.1029/2003GL019389

Observations of extreme temperature and wind gradients near the summer mesopause during the MaCWAVE/MIDAS rocket campaign

D. C. Fritts

Colorado Research Associates, a division of Northwest Research Associates, Boulder, Colorado, USA

B. P. Williams

Colorado Research Associates, a division of Northwest Research Associates, Boulder, Colorado, USA

C. Y. She

Department of Physics, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA

J. D. Vance

Department of Physics, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA

M. Rapp

Leibniz Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Kühlungsborn, Germany

F.-J. Lübken

Leibniz Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Kühlungsborn, Germany

A. Müllemann

Leibniz Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Kühlungsborn, Germany

F. J. Schmidlin

NASA/Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Virginia, USA

R. A. Goldberg

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA

We present measurements of extremely large gradients of temperature and zonal wind near the arctic summer mesopause obtained with sodium lidar and falling spheres during the MaCWAVE/MIDAS rocket and ground-based measurement campaign performed at the Andøya Rocket Range (ARR) and the ALOMAR observatory (69.3°N, 16.0°E) in July 2002. The gradients appear to result from strong gravity wave forcing of the summer mesopause, vertical scale compression and amplitude increases accompanying increasing stratification and decreasing intrinsic phase speeds, and the turbulent transport accompanying wave instability in the lower thermosphere. Zonal wind gradients are found to exceed 100 m s−1 km−1, while temperature gradients range from super-adiabatic to ∼40 to 100 K km−1. We also explore the implications of these large gradients for further instability of the gravity wave and mean fields.

Received 29 December 2003; accepted 2 June 2004; published 1 October 2004.

Citation: Fritts, D. C., B. P. Williams, C. Y. She, J. D. Vance, M. Rapp, F.-J. Lübken, A. Müllemann, F. J. Schmidlin, and R. A. Goldberg (2004), Observations of extreme temperature and wind gradients near the summer mesopause during the MaCWAVE/MIDAS rocket campaign, Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, L24S06, doi:10.1029/2003GL019389.

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