Seasonal oscillations of middle atmosphere temperature observed by Rayleigh lidars and their comparisons with TIMED/SABER observations

Abstract

[1] The long-term temperature data sets obtained by Rayleigh lidars at six different locations from low to high latitudes within the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC) were used to derive the annual oscillations (AO) and semiannual oscillations (SAO) of middle atmosphere temperature: Reunion Island (21.8°S); Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii (19.5°N); 0°N). The results were compared with those derived from the Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry (SABER) instrument onboard the Thermosphere-Ionosphere-Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) satellite. The zonal mean temperatures at similar latitudes show good agreement. The observations also reveal that the AO dominates the seasonal oscillations in both the stratosphere and the mesosphere at middle and high latitudes, with the amplitudes increasing poleward. The SAO oscillations are weaker at all six sites. The oscillations in the upper mesosphere are usually stronger than those in the upper stratosphere with a local minimum near 50-65 km. The upper mesospheric signals are clearly out of phase with upper stratospheric signals. Some differences between lidar and SABER results were found in both the stratosphere and mesosphere. These could be due to: the difference in data sampling between ground-based and space-based instruments, the length of data set, the tidal aliasing owing to the temperature AO and SAO since lidar data are nighttime only, and lidar temperature analysis algorithms. The seasonal oscillations of tidal amplitudes derived from SABER observations suggests that the tidal aliasing of the lidar temperature AO and SAO in the upper mesosphere may over-or under-estimate the real temperature oscillations, depending on the tidal phases. In addition, the possibly unrealistic seasonal oscillations embedded in the climatological models (e.g., MSIS or CIRA) at the reference point for lidar temperature analysis may also affect the lidar results in the top part of the profiles (usually in the upper mesosphere).

Statistical analysis of the mesospheric inversion layers over two symmetrical tropical sites: Réunion (20.8° S, 55.5° E) and Mauna Loa (19.5° N, 155.6° W)

“…Taking into account the conditions mentioned previously, 17 550 and 17 553 temperature profiles were used over Réunion and Mauna Loa, respectively. The valuable nature of SABER observations for the study of the middle atmosphere is well documented in previous research (Meriwether and Gerrard, 2004;Fechine et al, 2008;Dou et al, 2009;Gan et al, 2012;France et al, 2015). …”

“…They found a predominant semi-annual oscillation between 30 and 60 km with a maximum temperature at the equinoxes and a minimum at the solstices. The Rayleigh lidar located at Mauna Loa constitutes a unique and valuable dataset to study the long-term middle atmospheric temperature and dynamical variability in the tropical/subtropical region in the Northern Hemisphere (Leblanc et al, 1998(Leblanc et al, , 1999Leblanc and McDermid, 2001;Li et al, 2008Li et al, , 2010Dou et al, 2009). Leblanc et al (1998) completed a climatological study of middle atmosphere temperature including lidar observations recorded at Mauna Loa during the period 1993-1997.…”

“…On average this is equivalent to approximately 30 temperature profiles per month. Réunion and Mauna Loa temperature lidar profiles have been widely used in different research projects (Leblanc et al, 1998(Leblanc et al, , 1999Morel et al, 2002;Cadet et al, 2003;Bencherif et al, 2007;Dou et al, 2009;Sivakumar et al, 2011;.…”

Properties of the Long-Term Oscillations in the Middle Atmosphere Based on Observations from TIMED/SABER Instrument and FPI over Kelan

“…The TIDI results are derived from 60-day zonal mean with removal of tides; however, the results of FPI are derived from nighttime wind, which will be influenced by the strong tides in MLT region. The tidal amplitudes may influence those of nighttime AO and SAO depending on the tidal phase [27].…”

Global climatological variability of quasi-two-day waves revealed by TIMED/SABER observations

“…Therefore, it has been widely applied in studies of atmospheric structures (Xu et al, 2007a, b;Dou et al, 2009;Gan et al, 2012), GWs (Preusse et al, 2006;John and Kumar, 2012), tides (Zhang et al, 2006;Pancheva et al, 2009;Xu et al, 2009) and PWs . Garcia et al (2005) and Li et al (2008) also studied QTDWs based on SABER observations.…”