Twelve‐hour tides in the winter northern polar mesosphere and lower thermosphere

Abstract

[1] An investigation of the tidal oscillations near the winter northern polar mesopause has been carried out at Resolute Bay, Canada (74.9°N, 94.9°W). The daily, monthly, and annual variations of the tidal field were studied using the 1995/1996 and 1996/1997 data. Ground-based measurements were obtained using a Fabry-Perot interferometer with a circle to line interferometric optical system (FPI/CLIO) and the E Region Wind Interferometer (ERWIN). The FPI/CLIO observed the Doppler winds of the OH emission near 86 km altitude. The ERWIN provided simultaneous OH (near 86 km) and OI (near 97 km) wind measurements. Monthly data were compared to the Global Scale Wave Model (GSWM) and the Forbes/Vial Solar Semidiurnal Tidal Model predictions. Analysis of the 12-hour oscillation near 86 and 97 km altitudes indicates that it is persistent and characteristic of a semidiurnal propagating tide. The semidiurnal tide was found to be highly variable in amplitude and phase from day to day. The observations presented provide a continuous and extensive data set for the winter season.INDEX TERMS: 3332

Tidal features in the wintertime mesospheric temperature and neutral winds recorded at Resolute Bay, Canada (74.68°N, 94.90°W)

“…The neutral wind errors are approximately 10 m/s based on photon statistics. Comparisons between the FPI and MI wind measurements (Fisher et al, 2002) show mostly consistent results between the two instruments.…”

“…More specifically, there have been a number of reports on high-latitude tides at 12-, 8-and 6-h periods (Fisher et al, 2002;Walterscheid and Sivjee, 2001;Hocking, 2001). The classical migrating tides may not suitable explaining the observed oscillations because their amplitudes should be very small in the polar region (Forbes, 1982a, b).…”

Correlations of mesospheric winds with subtle motion of the Arctic polar vortex

“…localized, frequently sampled in time) observations are necessary for detailed investigation of the dynamics of signal progression between the MLT and lower atmospheric regions. Such time series analysis of wind velocities and temperatures in Arctic MLT have been recorded, amongst others, by Sivjee et al (2003), Ozonovich et al (1997) at Eureka, Mitchell et al (2002) from Esrange meteor radar, Won et al (1999) from Thule Air Base, Fisher et al (2002), Bhattacharya et al (2004) and Wu et al (2005) at Resolute Bay. Walterscheid et al (2000) have studied temperature changes using rotational temperatures from the OH airglow and NCEP (National Center for Environmental Prediction) assimilated data in the MLT over Eureka (80 • N) over a period of ∼35 days during a 1993 stratospheric warming event, and compared it to the predictions of the TIME-GCM model.…”

Calibration and validation of the advanced E-Region Wind Interferometer

“…Winds were obtained by sequentially viewing different directions. This instrument was stationed at Resolute Bay for close to a decade and several papers on the associated observations published (Fisher et al, 2000(Fisher et al, , 2002Bhattacharya and Gerrard, 2010).…”