An updated assessment of uncertainties in ''observed'' climatological winds and temperatures in the middle atmosphere (over altitudes ϳ10-80 km) is provided by detailed intercomparisons of contemporary and historic datasets. These datasets include global meteorological analyses and assimilations, climatologies derived from research satellite measurements, historical reference atmosphere circulation statistics, rocketsonde wind and temperature data, and lidar temperature measurements. The comparisons focus on a few basic circulation statistics (temperatures and zonal winds), with special attention given to tropical variability. Notable differences are found between analyses for temperatures near the tropical tropopause and polar lower stratosphere, temperatures near the global stratopause, and zonal winds throughout the Tropics. Comparisons of historical reference atmosphere and rocketsonde temperatures with more recent global analyses show the influence of decadal-scale cooling of the stratosphere and mesosphere. Detailed comparisons of the tropical semiannual oscillation (SAO) and quasibiennial oscillation (QBO) show large differences in amplitude between analyses; recent data assimilation schemes show the best agreement with equatorial radiosonde, rocket, and satellite data.

Four radiometric models are compared to study the Angström turbidity coefficient β over Ghardaïa (Algeria). Five years of global irradiance measurements and space data recorded with MODIS are used to estimate β. The models are referenced as Dog

The front end test stand is being constructed at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, with the aim of producing a 60 mA, 2 ms, 50 Hz, perfectly chopped H(-) ion beam. To meet the beam requirements, a more detailed understanding of the ion source plasma is required. To this end, an initial study is made of the optical spectrum of the plasma using a digital spectrometer. The atomic and molecular emission lines of hydrogen and caesium are clearly distinguished and a quantitative comparison is made when the ion source is run in different conditions. The electron temperature is 0.6 eV and measured line widths vary by up to 75%.

In theory, the HSRL method should expand the validity range of the atmospheric molecular density and temperature profiles of the Rayleigh LIDAR in the UTLS below 30 km, with an accuracy of 1 K, while suppressing the particle contribution. We tested a Spherical Fabry-Perot which achieves these performances while keeping a big flexibility in optical alignment. However, this device has some limitations (thermal drift and a possible partial depolarisation of the backscattered signal).