Two Years of PMC Observations With OSIRIS on Odin

Physics

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

0300 Atmospheric Composition And Structure, 0305 Aerosols And Particles (0345, 4801), 0320 Cloud Physics And Chemistry, 1600 Global Change (New Category)

Scientific paper

The Odin research satellite, a joint Sweden, Canada, France and Finland mission, was launched in February 2001 into a sun-synchronous terminator orbit at an altitude of approximately 600 km, with the at ascending node 1800 LT. Its period is 96.7 min, and the maximum latitudinal coverage in the orbital plane is from 82.2 N to 82.2 S. Since spring 2001 the Optical Spectrograph and Infrared Imaging System (OSIRIS) instrument on Odin measures the atmospheric limb brightness by nodding between 6 km and 65 km (stratospheric mode), between 6 and 100 km (stratospheric-mesospheric mode), and between 65 km and 100 km (mesospheric mode). When in one of the last two modes, OSIRIS can detect Polar Mesospheric Clouds (PMC) by measuring the limb-scattered solar radiance from these clouds in the spectral range from 280 nm to 800 nm with a 1 nm resolution. Since the primary goal of OSIRIS is to study the stratospheric ozone, it normally scans the mesosphere once in every 8 days. The only exception is the Northern Hemisphere summer period (2 weeks in July), when OSIRIS operates in mesospheric mode about 80 persent of the time, and the remaining 20 percent are devoted to stratospheric-mesospheric measurements. During the last two years, OSIRIS has detected many PMC in both hemispheres. In this work we present their annual frequency of appearance, spatial and temporal distribution, average height and brightness. The broad spectral range of OSIRIS provides a unique opportunity to obtain PMC color information. In addition we compare cloud particle sizes calculated under the assumption of power and lognormal distributions of uniform spherical Mie scatterers made of ice.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

Two Years of PMC Observations With OSIRIS on Odin 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 Two Years of PMC Observations With OSIRIS on Odin, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Two Years of PMC Observations With OSIRIS on Odin will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1642668

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.