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The Long‐Term Trends Of Nocturnal Mesopause Temperature And Altitude Revealed By Na Lidar Observations Between 1990 And 2018 At Midlatitude, Tao Yuan, Stanley C. Solomon, Chiao -Y. She, D. A. Krueger, Han-Li Liu
The Long‐Term Trends Of Nocturnal Mesopause Temperature And Altitude Revealed By Na Lidar Observations Between 1990 And 2018 At Midlatitude, Tao Yuan, Stanley C. Solomon, Chiao -Y. She, D. A. Krueger, Han-Li Liu
All Physics Faculty Publications
The mesopause, a boundary between mesosphere and thermosphere with the coldest atmospheric temperature, is formed mainly by the combining effects of radiative cooling of CO2, and the vertical adiabatic flow in the upper atmosphere. A continuous multidecade (1990‐2018) nocturnal temperature data base of an advanced Na lidar, obtained at Fort Collins, CO (41°N, 105°W), and at Logan, UT (42°N, 112°W), provides an unprecedented opportunity to study the long‐term variations of this important atmospheric boundary. In this study, we categorize the lidar‐observed mesopause into two categories: the “high mesopause” (HM) above 97 km during nonsummer months, mainly formed through the radiative …
Photochemistry On The Bottom Side Of The Mesospheric Na Layer, Tao Yuan, Wuhu Feng, John M. C. Plane, Daniel R. Marsh
Photochemistry On The Bottom Side Of The Mesospheric Na Layer, Tao Yuan, Wuhu Feng, John M. C. Plane, Daniel R. Marsh
All Physics Faculty Publications
Lidar observations of the mesospheric Na layer have revealed considerable diurnal variations, particularly on the bottom side of the layer, where more than an order-of-magnitude increase in Na density has been observed below 80 km after sunrise. In this paper, multi-year Na lidar observations are utilized over a full diurnal cycle at Utah State University (USU) (41.8o N, 111.8o W) and a global atmospheric model of Na with 0.5 km vertical resolution in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (WACCM-Na) to explore the dramatic changes of Na density on the bottom side of the layer. Photolysis of the principal reservoir NaHCO3 …