Upper Atmosphere Variations During the Solar Cycle, Inferred from Spacecraft Drag from 1991 to 2005

Details Upper Atmosphere Variations During the Solar Cycle, Inferred from Spacecraft Drag from 1991 to 2005 Upper Atmosphere Variations During the Solar Cycle, Inferred from Spacecraft Drag from 1991 to 2005

May 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agusmsa33b..06l&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2007, abstract #SA33B-06

Physics

7959 Models, 7969 Satellite Drag (1241), 7974 Solar Effects, 0355 Thermosphere: Composition And Chemistry

Scientific paper

Spacecraft in low earth orbit continually experience the effects of changing upper atmospheric density. Variations in solar energy output are a primary source of these changes, which cause an order of magnitude increase from the minimum to the maximum of the 11-year solar cycle, compared with the much smaller anthropogenic-induced decrease of a few percent per decade. A new technique for rapidly retrieving upper atmospheric densities from the orbital elements archived in NORAD's Two Line Element sets is used to analyze the orbits of the Yohkoh spacecraft. Yohkoh orbited the Earth at altitudes between 650 and 200 km, from 1991 to 2005, a period which covers two solar cycle maxima and the intervening minimum. The derived densities exhibit significant responses to solar variability throughout the mission. Comparisons with the NRLMSIS specification model of upper atmospheric density indicates notable differences on time scales of both the 27-day rotational modulation and the 11-year solar cycle. These differences can affect the estimation of anthropogenic density trends which are typically derived relative to empirical model densities. Improved characterization of solar-induced variations is therefore necessary in order to obtain more accurate secular trend estimates.

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