Variation and Fine Structure of Mesospheric Turbulence Layers as Observed During the MTeX Rocket Experiment

Abstract:

On 26 January 2015, two NASA sounding rockets were launched from Poker Flat Research Range, Alaska, as part of the Mesosphere-lower Thermosphere experiment. The missions were launched at 09:13 UT and 09:46 UT into a perturbed mesosphere with an inversion layer near 80 km as observed by Rayleigh lidar. Each payload carried identical instrumentation to probe plasma and neutral density at sub-meter scales on upleg and downleg portions of the trajectory, which were about 70 km apart for mesospheric altitudes. Neutral density fluctuations obtained by the CONE ionization gauge reveal several structured layers of neutral turbulence associated with regions of relative temperature maxima. This was the first time that four neutral turbulence profiles were observed in such short order and in the same atmospheric conditions. The image shows wavelet spectra for all four profiles indicating layers of high frequency, correspondingly, small scale fluctuations. We present energy dissipation rates derived from the inner scale of the turbulence spectra and discuss possible implications for gravity wave breaking and turbulent heating.