Identification

Title

Impact of the lower thermospheric winter-to-summer residual circulation on thermospheric composition

Abstract

Gravity wave forcing near the mesopause drives a summer-to-winter residual circulation in the mesosphere and a reversed, lower thermospheric winter-to-summer residual circulation. We conducted modeling studies to investigate how this lower thermospheric residual circulation impacts thermospheric composition (O/N-2). We found that the upwelling associated with the residual circulation significantly decreases O/N-2 in winter and the downwelling in summer slightly increases O/N-2. Consequently, the residual circulation reduces the summer-to-winter latitudinal gradient of O/N-2, which causes the simulated latitudinal gradient of O/N-2 to be more consistent with observations. The smaller summer-to-winter latitudinal gradient of O/N-2 would decrease the ionosphere winter anomaly in model simulations, which would bring the simulated winter anomaly into better agreement with ionospheric observations. The lower thermospheric residual circulation may be a process that has been largely ignored but is very important to the summer-to-winter latitudinal gradients, as well as annual/semiannual variations in the thermosphere and ionosphere.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7tb18tg

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

2017-05-16T00:00:00Z

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