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Long-Term Midlatitude Mesopause Region Temperature Trend Deduced From Quarter Century (1990-2014) Na Lidar Observations, Chiao Y. She, D. A. Krueger, Tao Yuan

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The long-term midlatitude temperature trend between 85 and 105 km is deduced from 25 years (March 1990-December 2014) of Na Lidar observations. With a strong warming episode in the 1990s, the time series was least-square fitted to an 11-parameter nonlinear function. This yields a cooling trend starting from an insignificant value of 0.64 ± 0.99 K decade^-1 at 85 km, increasing to a maximum of 2.8 ± 0.58K decade^-1 between 91 and 93 km, and then decreasing to a warming trend above 103 km. The geographic altitude dependence of the trend is in general agreement with model predictions. …