Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Acoustic Waves In The Upper Atmosphere, Geoffrey Blayne Schulthess

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Atmospheric waves can be generated by tropospheric sources such as earthquakes and explosions, causing significant disturbances in the upper atmosphere and ionosphere, where radio wave communications take place. For this analysis, they will be separated into two sub-groups called acoustic waves and gravity waves. Because each of these waves have unique frequency ranges, they can be observed and measured in order to determine their source type and location. Past studies attempted to build the connections between these waves with severe storms and earthquakes, which have improved our understanding of their complexity. Because of the complex nature of these waves, simplified …

Investigating Mesospheric Mountain Waves And Oh Temperature Dynamics Over Chile, David G. Soward

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Atmospheric gravity waves (GW) occur throughout the atmosphere, propagating from copious sources in the lower atmosphere into the upper neutral atmosphere and ionosphere. There are many sources of GW, most of them are associated with strong weather disturbances which are highly transient in nature. Another source of GW are strong winds blowing over prominent mountains that generate mountain waves (MW.) An important property of all of these waves is that they propagate upwards, carrying large amounts of energy and momentum which can be deposited in the upper atmosphere as the waves saturate and break. The Andes Lidar Observatory (ALO) was …

The Advanced Mesospheric Temperature Mapper: Remote Sensing Of The Nighttime Oh Layer During The Deepwave Campaign, Pattilyn Mclaughlin

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The Advanced Mesospheric Temperature Mapper [AMTM] is a remote sensing instrument developed at Utah State University to map temperature structures in the hydroxyl airglow emission at ~87 km. These maps can then be used to quantify wave field characteristics and to observe general climatology trends. Two recent campaigns that it has been involved with are the DEEPWAVE campaign in Lauder, New Zealand and the Super Soaker campaign in Fairbanks, Alaska.

The Deep Propagating Gravity Wave Experiment, “DEEPWAVE” was an international measurement and modeling program intended to characterize the generation and propagation of a broad range of atmospheric gravity waves with …

Investigating Mountain Waves In Mtm Image Data At Cerro Pachon, Chile, Neal R. Criddle, M. J. Taylor, P.-D. Pautet, Y. Zhao, G. Swenson, A. Liu

Neal R Criddle

Gravity waves are important drivers of chemical species mixing, energy and momentum transfer into the MLT (~80 - 100 km) region. As part of a collaborative program involving instruments from several institutions Utah State University has operated a Mesospheric Temperature Mapper (MTM) at the new Andes Lidar Observatory (ALO) on Cerro Pachon (30.2°S, 70.7°W) Since August 2009. A primary goal of this program is to quantify the impact of mountain waves on the MLT region. The Andes region is an excellent natural laboratory for investigating gravity wave influences on the MLT region, especially the study of mountain waves, created by …

Seasonal Variability And Dynamics Of Mesospheric Gravity Waves Over The Andes, Neal R. Criddle, M. J. Taylor, P.-D. Pautet, Y. Zhao

Neal R Criddle

The ALO is a new facility developed for atmospheric research, located at the foot of the Andes mountain range in Cerro Pachon, Chile (30.2°S, 70.7°W). As part of a collaborative program, Utah State has a Mesospheric Temperature Mapper (MTM) on site, which is used to study short period gravity wave dynamics and temperature variations in the mesosphere-lower thermosphere region. The MTM began taking measurements of the OH(6,2) and O2(0,1) spectral bands in August 2009 and a complete profile of seasonal variation in gravity wave characteristics has been created for August 2009 through August 2010 using the OH(6,2) Band. The primary …

Rayleigh-Lidar Observations Of Mesospheric Gravity Wave Activity Above Logan, Utah, Durga N. Kafle

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

A Rayleigh-scatter lidar operated from Utah State University (41.7°N, 111.8°W) for a period spanning 11 years ― 1993 through 2004. Of the 900 nights observed, data on 150 extended to 90 km or above. They were the ones used in these studies related to atmospheric gravity waves (AGWs) between 45 and 90 km. This is the first study of AGWs with an extensive data set that spans the whole mesosphere. Using the temperature and temperature gradient profiles, we produced a climatology of the Brunt-Väisälä (buoyancy) angular frequency squared, N² (rad/s)². The minimum and maximum values of N …