Particle Characteristics from the Spectra of Polar Mesospheric Clouds

Details Particle Characteristics from the Spectra of Polar Mesospheric Clouds Particle Characteristics from the Spectra of Polar Mesospheric Clouds

Dec 2001

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001agufmsa41b0743c&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2001, abstract #SA41B-0743

Statistics

0305 Aerosols And Particles (0345, 4801), 0341 Middle Atmosphere: Constituent Transport And Chemistry (3334), 3349 Polar Meteorology, 3360 Remote Sensing

Scientific paper

Spectrographic imagers on the Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX) satellite have obtained the first spectra of polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs) from the far ultraviolet to the visible (164 nm to 585 nm). Several hundred PMC spectra were extracted over a three week period during the summer of 1999. The spectral extractions employed peak intensities rather than integration intensities. To improve statistics, the spectra were normalized and averaged either over all latitudes for one pass or over all passes within 5° latitude bins, a process that preserved the shape but not the magnitude of the spectra. The subsequent spectra, from three spectrographic imagers, produced a PMC signal that fell into the noise at wavelengths short of 200 nm and showed Earth albedo effects longward of ~315 nm. The spectra between these limiting wavelengths were subjected to a least squares analysis to determine characteristics of the scattering particles assuming a lognormal distribution of Mie scatterers made of ice. Considered over all passes, the distribution mode (size) was 78.0 +/- 0.6 nm and the distribution dispersion (width) was 1.22 +/- 0.01. Over the period of observation, the mode decreased systematically from ~82 nm to 78 nm; the mode also decreased from ~82 nm to ~74 nm as the latitude increased from ~67° to ~82° . The width of the lognormal distribution varied smoothly from ~1.16 to ~1.25 over the same latitude range. The width also exhibited a sudden change of ~0.04 within a period of one day. Interpreted in terms of a lognormal distribution, the particles generally become smaller and their distribution narrows as the latitude increases.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Particle Characteristics from the Spectra of Polar Mesospheric Clouds does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Particle Characteristics from the Spectra of Polar Mesospheric Clouds, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Particle Characteristics from the Spectra of Polar Mesospheric Clouds will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1379321