The Climatology of Polar Mesospheric Clouds From the Student Nitric Oxide Explorer

Physics

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0340 Middle Atmosphere--Composition And Chemistry, 0341 Middle Atmosphere--, Onstituent Transport And Chemistry (3334)

Scientific paper

Polar Mesospheric Clouds (PMCs) are a high latitude phenomenon known to occur at altitudes near 83 km at times near the summer solstice, and are related to the phenomenon of Noctilucent Clouds (NLCs). The first recorded siting of an NLC occurred in 1885 and there is evidence that the frequency of occurrence of NLCs is increasing, suggesting long term change in the mesosphere. The first climatology of PMCs was derived from observations by the Solar Mesospheric Explorer (SME) made during 1981 through 1986. SME observations showed seasonal variations with a typical PMC season lasting from approximately 90 days beginning 21 days before summer solstice. The Student Nitric Oxide Explorer (SNOE), like SME, observes the Earth's UV limb radiance and thus also observes PMCs. The instrumentation on SNOE and SME are nearly identical making the observations comparable. SNOE was launched on February 27, 1998; thus, the combination of SNOE and SME measurements cover a span of nearly two decades. To date, SNOE has observed three northern and three southern PMC seasons. In this talk we will present the algorithms for determining PMC scattering properties from the background limb radiance. We will present the derived rates of occurrence of PMCs from the SNOE measurements, and we will show how the variation of cloud brightness and latitudinal extent vary through the season. These results will be compared to those from SME.

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