SA41B-2350
LIDAR AND AIRGLOW OBSERVATIONS OF GRAVITY WAVE COUPLING WITH TIDES IN THE MESOPAUSE REGION
Thursday, 17 December 2015
Poster Hall (Moscone South)
Gary R Swenson1, Fabio Vargas1 and Alan Z Liu2, (1)University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Urbana, IL, United States, (2)Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, FL, United States
Abstract:
The Andes Lidar Observatory (ALO) at 30 degrees S, 70 degrees W has made observations of temperatures and winds with Na lidar and also measures mesospheric airglow structure for studies of mesospheric dynamics. The diurnal and semi-diurnal tides are large scale features that alternate as a dominant feature at the ALO location, forcing a thermal lapse rate to be near adiabatic. High frequency and medium frequency gravity waves propagate from the lower atmosphere and couple with the tidal forced lapse rate, imposing it’s temperature disturbance to a condition of high instability. Instabilities are forced resulting in overturning and often MILs (mesosopheric inversion layers) result. Data describing these features from the ALO observatory will be presented and discussed.
