Seasonal and Nocturnal Variations of the Mesospheric Sodium Layer at Starfire Optical Range, New Mexico | Zendy

Xiong Hu | Zendy; Chester S. Gardner | Zendy; Alan Z. Liu | Zendy

AI Assistant Blog Pricing

Home ZAIA Blog

Open Access

Seasonal and Nocturnal Variations of the Mesospheric Sodium Layer at Starfire Optical Range, New Mexico

Author(s) -

Xiong Hu,

Chester S. Gardner,

Alan Z. Liu

Publication year - 2003

Publication title -

chinese journal of geophysics

Language(s) - English

Resource type - Journals

eISSN - 2326-0440

pISSN - 0898-9591

DOI - 10.1002/cjg2.3360

Subject(s) - nocturnal , sunrise , daytime , atmospheric sciences , environmental science , range (aeronautics) , lidar , sodium , climatology , physics , geology , chemistry , materials science , optics , astronomy , composite material , organic chemistry

The seasonal variations of the mesospheric sodium layer structure over Starfire Optic Range (SOR: 35 ° N, 106.5 ° W), New Mexico are characterized using 46 night data of Na wind/temperature lidar observations collected from Jan. 1998 to May 2000. The column abundance has a mean value of 5.06×10 9 cm – 2 and strong annual oscillations with a maximum in November and a minimum in June and July. The annual mean rms width of the sodium layer is 4.30km and the mean centroid height is 91.60 km. Semiannual oscillations are evident in seasonal variations of the rms width and the centroid height. Their mean nocturnal variations show effects of tides. The photo‐ionization during daytime and recombination processes of Na at night, as well as tidal dynamics, induce strong nocturnal variations in the sodium abundance with a minimum just before midnight and a maximum just before sunrise.

The content you want is available to Zendy users.

Already have an account? Click here to sign in.

Having issues? You can contact us here

Accelerating Research