Other
Scientific paper
Dec 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011agufmsa41c..07s&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2011, abstract #SA41C-07
Other
[0355] Atmospheric Composition And Structure / Thermosphere: Composition And Chemistry, [3369] Atmospheric Processes / Thermospheric Dynamics
Scientific paper
The WIND Imaging Interferometer (WINDII) on NASA's Upper Research Satellite measured winds both day and night from the O(1S) atomic oxygen 557.7 nm green line emission. At night the emission is confined to an altitude range between 90 and 120 km and this region received the most attention as winds were available over 24 hours of local time. For the dayglow emission extending from 90 km to 300 km there is a complex mix of excitation processes whose characteristics vary with altitude but near the top of the altitude range at 250 km there is a single dominant process, photoelectron impact on atomic oxygen. Given the known solar flux this makes possible the determination of atomic oxygen concentration at this altitude and an exploration of the possibilities that this creates is currently under investigation. The atomic oxygen number densities so derived are seen to track the solar flux and the Kp value closely, and they agree well with the NRLMSISE-00 model. This agreement is important with respect to the validity of the WINDII atomic oxygen measurements, but what is more important is that the WINDII data are able to provide the atomic oxygen response to influences not incorporated in the model, which are dominantly dynamical perturbations. The first of these to be studied was the wave 4 associated with the DE3 non-migrating diurnal eastward propagating tide of wavenumber 3, reported previously as an equatorial phenomenon. The WINDII observations found wave 4 to also occur at high latitudes. Of additional interest here are longitudinal structures that suggest the transport of atomic oxygen out of the polar cap to lower latitudes. Fundamentally, NRLMSISE-00 responds to influences from above while the O(1S) observed by WINDII responds to influences from below as well as above. By using NRLMSISE-00 as a baseline it will be possible to use the WINDII data to identify and quantify a number of dynamical sources, and perhaps other influences as well. Although the exploration of these possibilities has just begun, it promises to provide new information about the state of the thermosphere, beginning in this year which is the 20th anniversary year of the WINDII launch on UARS.
Cho Yasuo
Shepherd Gordon G.
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