Skip to main content

Volume 58 Supplement 9

Special Issue: International Sessions of Japan Earth and Planetary Science Joint Meeting 2005

Sodium lidar measurements of waves and instabilities near the mesopause during the DELTA rocket campaign

Abstract

The sounding rocket for the DELTA (Dynamics and Energetics of the Lower Thermosphere in Aurora) campaign was successfully launched from Andoya at 00:33 UT on Dec 13, 2004. Though it was cloudy at the time of launch, theWeber Na lidar was operating intermittently between 20:00 UT and 23:30 UT on Dec 12, observing Na density, temperature and meridional wind between 80 and 100 km. Throughout the lidar observations, we observed significant small (λz < 5 km) and medium-scale (λz ≈8–15 km) wave activity producing significant wind and temperature shears. There were unusually large (up to 10 m/s and 10 K amplitudes) perturbations of the vertical wind and temperature profiles at 21 UT with a 3 km vertical wavelength that was much stronger in the vertical beam than in the north beam. The atmosphere appeared to become more active as the launch time approached. During the last interval with data, at 23:20 UT, Dec. 12th, the lidar profiles revealed a gravity wave in both beams with a magnitude of 5–10 K in temperature and approximately 5 km vertical wavelength. The large background shear plus the wave perturbation produced regions with potential convective instability at multiple altitudes.

References

  • Cox, R. M. and J. M. C. Plane, An ion-molecule mechanism for the formation of neutral sporadic Na layers, J. Geophys. Res., 103, 6349–6359, 1998.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fritts, D. C. and M. J. Alexander, Gravity wave dynamics and effects in the middle atmosphere, Rev. Geophys., 41, 1003, doi:10.1029/2001RG000106, 2003.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • 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, Observations of extreme temperature and wind gradients near the summer mesopause during the MaCWAVE/MIDAS rocket campaign, Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, LS24S06, doi:10.1029/2003GL019389, 2004.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goldberg, R. A., D. C. Fritts, B. P. Williams, F. J. Lübken, M. Rapp, W. Singer, R. Latteck, P. Hoffmann, A. Müllemann, G. Baumgarten, F. J. Schmidlin, C. Y. She, and D. A. Krueger, The MaCWAVE/MIDAS rocket and ground-based measurements of polar summer dynamics: Overview and mean state structure, Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, LS24S02, doi:10.1029/2004GL019411, 2004.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldberg, R. A., D. C. Fritts, F. J. Schmidlin, B. P. Williams, C. L. Croskey, J. D. Mitchell, M. Friedrich, J. M. R. III, U. Blum, and K. H. Fricke, The MaCWAVE program to study gravity wave influences on the polar mesosphere, Ann. Geophys., 24, 1159–1173, doi:1432-0576/ag/2006-24-1159, 2006.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hansen, G. and U. P. Hoppe, Investigation of the upper mesospheric dynamics under late polar summer conditions by EISCAT and LIDAR, J. Atmos. Terr. Phys., 58, 317–335, 1996.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hecht, J. H., Instability layers and airglow imaging, Rev. Geophys., 42, RG1001, doi:10.1029/2003RG000131, 2004. Hecht, J. H., A. Z. Liu, R. L. Bishop, J. H. Clemmons, C. S. Gardner, M. F. Larsen, R. G. Roble, G. R. Swenson, and R. L. Walterscheid, An overview of observations of unstable layers during the Turbulent Oxygen Mixing Experiment (TOMEX), J. Geophys. Res., 109, D02S01, doi:10.1029/2002JD003123, 2004.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kurihara, J., T. Abe, K. Oyama, E. Griffin, M. Kosch, A. Aruliah, K. Kauristie, Y. Ogawa, S. Komada, and N. Iwagami, Observations of the lower thermospheric neutral temperature and density in the DELTA campaign, Earth Planets Space, 58, this issue, 1123–1130, 2006.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Li, F., A. Z. Liu, and G. R. Swenson, Characteristics of instabilities in the mesopause region over Maui, Hawaii, J. Geophys. Res., 110, D09S12, doi:10.1029/2004JD005097, 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meriwether, J. W. and A. J. Gerrard, Mesosphere inversion layers and stratosphere temperature enhancements, Rev. Geophys., 42, RG3003, doi:10.1029/2003RG000133, 2004.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mitchell, N. J. and V. S. C. Howells, Vertical velocities associated with gravity waves measured in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere with the EISCAT VHF radar, Ann. Geophys., 16, 1367–1379, 1998.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nozawa, S., Y. Ogawa, A. Brekke, T. Tsuda, C. M. Hall, H. Miyaoka, J. Kurihara, T. Abe, and R. Fujii, EISCAT observational results during the DELTA campaign, Earth Planets Space, 58, this issue, 1183–1191, 2006.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Riggin, D. M., C. K. Meyer, D. C. Fritts, M. J. Jarvis, Y. Murayama, W. Singer, R. A. Vincent, and D. J. Murphy, MF radar observations of seasonal variability of semidiurnal motions in the mesosphere at high northern and southern latitudes, J. Atmos. Sol.-Terr. Phys., 65, 483–493, 2003.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • She, C. Y., J. D. Vance, B. P. Williams, D. A. Krueger, H. Moosmüller, D. Gibson-Wilde, and D. C. Fritts, Lidar studies of atmospheric dynamics near polar mesopause, EOS, 83, 289–293, 2002.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • She, C. Y., T. Li, R. L. Collins, T. Yuan, B. P. Williams, T. D. Kawahara, J. D. Vance, P. Acott, and D. A. Krueger, Tidal perturbations and variability in the mesopause region over Fort Collins, CO (41N, 105W): Continuous multi-day temperature and wind lidar observations, Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, L24111, doi:10.1029/2004GL021165, 2004.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Williams, B. P., M. A. White, D. A. Krueger, and C. Y. She, Observation of a large amplitude wave and inversion layer leading to convective instability in the mesopause region over Fort Collins, CO (41N, 105W), Geophys. Res. Lett., 29, 1850–1853, doi:10.1029/2001GL014514, 2002.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Williams, B. P., D. C. Fritts, L. Wang, C. Y. She, J. D. Vance, F. J. Schmidlin, R. A. Goldberg, A. Müllemann, and F. J. Lübken, Gravity waves in the arctic mesosphere during the MaCWAVE/MIDAS summer rocket program, Geophy. Res. Lett., 31, L24S05, doi: 10.1029/2004GL020049, 2004.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, B. P., D. C. Fritts, C. Y. She, and R. A. Goldberg, Gravity wave propagation through a large semidiurnal tide and instabilities in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere during the winter 2003 MaCWAVE rocket campaign, Ann. Geophys., 24, 1199–1208, doi:SRef-ID: 1432-0576/ag/2006-24-1199, 2006.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to B. P. Williams.

Rights and permissions

Open Access  This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Williams, B.P., Fritts, D.C., Vance, J.D. et al. Sodium lidar measurements of waves and instabilities near the mesopause during the DELTA rocket campaign. Earth Planet Sp 58, 1131–1137 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1186/BF03352002

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/BF03352002

Key words