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Found 8 entries in the Bibliography.

Showing entries from 1 through 8

2022

Sounding Rocket Observation of Nitric Oxide in the Polar Night

An altitude profile of Nitric Oxide (NO) in the 80–110 km altitude range was measured in the polar night from a sounding rocket on 27 January 2020. The observations were made using the technique of stellar occultation with a UV spectrograph observing the γ (1,0) band of NO near 215 nm. The tangent point for the altitude profile was at 74° latitude, a location that had been in darkness for 80 days. The retrieved slant column density profile is interpreted using an assumed four-parameter analytic profile shape. Retrievals of the fitting parameters yield a profile with a peak NO concentration of 2.2 ± 0.7 × 108 cm−3 at 93.5 ± 4.1 km. The observations were made during a time of minimum solar and geomagnetic activity. The NO maximum retrieved from the rocket profile is significantly larger in abundance and lower in altitude than other observations on the same day at nearby latitudes just outside the polar night. These rocket-borne results are consistent with NO that is created over the course over the polar winter and is confined to high latitudes in the polar night by the mesospheric polar vortex. During the course of that confinement the abundance increases due to the lack of photodissociation, allowing the NO to descend. We show that the observed descent can be explained by eddy diffusion-driven transport, though vertical advection cannot be ruled out.

Bailey, Scott; McClintock, William; Carstens, Justin; Thurairajah, Brentha; Das, Saswati; Randall, Cora; Harvey, Lynn; Siskind, David; Stevens, Michael; Venkataramani, Karthik;

Published by: Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics Published on:

YEAR: 2022 DOI: 10.1029/2021JA030257

Lower thermosphere; mesosphere; nitric oxide; polar night; sounding rocket; stellar occultation

2021

Lower Thermospheric Material Transport via Lagrangian Coherent Structures

We show that inter-model variation due to under-constraint by observations impacts the ability to predict material transport in the lower thermosphere. Lagrangian coherent structures (LCSs), indicating regions of maximal separation (or convergence) in a time-varying flow, are derived in the lower thermosphere from models for several space shuttle water vapor plume events. We find that inter-model differences in thermospheric transport manifest in LCSs in a way that is more stringent than mean wind analyses. LCSs defined using horizontal flow fields from the Specified Dynamics version of the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model with thermosphere-ionosphere eXtension (SD-WACCMX) at 109 km altitude are compared to Global Ultraviolet Imager (GUVI) observations of the space shuttle main engine plume. In one case, SD-WACCMX predicts an LCS ridge to produce spreading not found in the observations. LCSs and tracer transport from SD-WACCMX and from data assimilative WACCMX (WACCMX + DART) are compared to each other and to GUVI observations. Differences in the modeled LCSs and tracer positions appear between SD-WACCMX and WACCMX + DART despite the similarity of mean winds. WACCMX + DART produces better tracer transport results for a July 2006 event, but it is unclear which model performs better in terms of LCS ridges. For a February 2010 event, when mean winds differ by up to 50 m/s between the models, differences in LCSs and tracer trajectories are even more severe. Low-pass filtering the winds up to zonal wavenumber 6 reduces but does not eliminate inter-model LCS differences. Inter-model alignment of LCSs improves at a lower 60 km altitude.

Datta-Barua, Seebany; Pedatella, Nicholas; Greer, Katelynn; Wang, Ningchao; Nutter, Leanne; Harvey, Lynn;

Published by: Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics Published on:

YEAR: 2021 DOI: 10.1029/2020JA028834

Impact of September 2019 Antarctic Sudden Stratospheric Warming on Mid-Latitude Ionosphere and Thermosphere Over North America and Europe

Goncharenko, Larisa; Harvey, Lynn; Greer, Katelynn; Zhang, Shun-Rong; Coster, Anthea; Paxton, Larry;

Published by: Geophysical Research Letters Published on:

YEAR: 2021 DOI:

2020

Longitudinally Varying Thermospheric Composition and Its Connection to the Extraordinary 2019 SSW

Greer, Katelynn; Harvey, Lynn; Goncharenko, Larisa;

Published by: Published on:

YEAR: 2020 DOI:

2017

The Global-Scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) Mission

The Earth\textquoterights thermosphere and ionosphere constitute a dynamic system that varies daily in response to energy inputs from above and from below. This system can exhibit a significant response within an hour to changes in those inputs, as plasma and fluid processes compete to control its temperature, composition, and structure. Within this system, short wavelength solar radiation and charged particles from the magnetosphere deposit energy, and waves propagating from the lower atmosphere dissipate. Understanding the global-scale response of the thermosphere-ionosphere (T-I) system to these drivers is essential to advancing our physical understanding of coupling between the space environment and the Earth\textquoterights atmosphere. Previous missions have successfully determined how the \textquotedblleftclimate\textquotedblright of the T-I system responds. The Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission will determine how the \textquotedblleftweather\textquotedblright of the T-I responds, taking the next step in understanding the coupling between the space environment and the Earth\textquoterights atmosphere. Operating in geostationary orbit, the GOLD imaging spectrograph will measure the Earth\textquoterights emissions from 132 to 162 nm. These measurements will be used image two critical variables\textemdashthermospheric temperature and composition, near 160 km\textemdashon the dayside disk at half-hour time scales. At night they will be used to image the evolution of the low latitude ionosphere in the same regions that were observed earlier during the day. Due to the geostationary orbit being used the mission observes the same hemisphere repeatedly, allowing the unambiguous separation of spatial and temporal variability over the Americas.

Eastes, R.; McClintock, W.; Burns, A.; Anderson, D.; Andersson, L.; Codrescu, M.; Correira, J.; Daniell, R.; England, S.; Evans, J.; Harvey, J.; Krywonos, A.; Lumpe, J.; Richmond, A.; Rusch, D.; Siegmund, O.; Solomon, S.; Strickland, D.; Woods, T.; Aksnes, A.; Budzien, S.; Dymond, K.; Eparvier, F.; Martinis, C.; Oberheide, J.;