Identification

Title

Seasonal oscillations of middle atmosphere temperature observed by Rayleigh lidars and their comparisons with TIMED/SABER observations

Abstract

The long-term temperature data sets obtained by Rayleigh lidars at six different locations from low to high latitudes within the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC) were used to derive the annual oscillations (AO) and semiannual oscillations (SAO) of middle atmosphere temperature: Reunion Island (21.8°S); Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii (19.5°N); Table Mountain Facility, California (34.4°N); Observatoire de Haute Provence, France (43.9°N); Hohenpeissenberg, Germany (47.8°N); Sondre Stromfjord, Greenland (67.0°N). The results were compared with those derived from the Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry (SABER) instrument onboard the Thermosphere-Ionosphere-Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) satellite. The zonal mean temperatures at similar latitudes show good agreement. The observations also reveal that the AO dominates the seasonal oscillations in both the stratosphere and the mesosphere at middle and high latitudes, with the amplitudes increasing poleward. The SAO oscillations are weaker at all six sites. The oscillations in the upper mesosphere are usually stronger than those in the upper stratosphere with a local minimum near 50-65 km. The upper mesospheric signals are clearly out of phase with upper stratospheric signals. Some differences between lidar and SABER results were found in both the stratosphere and mesosphere. These could be due to: the difference in data sampling between ground-based and space-based instruments, the length of data set, the tidal aliasing owing to the temperature AO and SAO since lidar data are nighttime only, and lidar temperature analysis algorithms. The seasonal oscillations of tidal amplitudes derived from SABER observations suggests that the tidal aliasing of the lidar temperature AO and SAO in the upper mesosphere may over- or under-estimate the real temperature oscillations, depending on the tidal phases. In addition, the possibly unrealistic seasonal oscillations embedded in the climatological models (e.g., MSIS or CIRA) at the reference point for lidar temperature analysis may also affect the lidar results in the top part of the profiles (usually in the upper mesosphere).

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d78c9xbg

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

2009-10-17T00:00:00Z

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