Open AccessRemote sensing of neutral temperatures in the Earth's thermosphere using the Lyman‐Birge‐Hopfield bands of N 2 : Comparisons with satellite drag data
Author(s) -
Krywonos Andrey,
Murray D. J.,
Eastes R. W.,
Aksnes A.,
Budzien S. A.,
Daniell R. E.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: space physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.67
H-Index - 298
eISSN - 2156-2202
pISSN - 0148-0227
DOI - 10.1029/2011ja017226
Subject(s) - thermosphere , satellite , spectrograph , remote sensing , ionosphere , incoherent scatter , exosphere , spectrometer , meteor (satellite) , environmental science , physics , atmospheric sciences , jovian , spectral line , computational physics , meteorology , geology , geophysics , astrophysics , astronomy , optics , planet , ion , quantum mechanics , saturn
This paper presents remotely sensed neutral temperatures obtained from ultraviolet observations and compares them with temperatures from the NRLMSISE‐00 version of the Mass Spectrometer and Incoherent Scatter (MSIS) model (unconstrained and constrained to match the total densities from satellite drag). Latitudinal profiles of the temperatures in the Earth's thermosphere are obtained by inversion of high‐resolution (∼1.3 Å) observations of the (1,1) and (5,4) Lyman‐Birge‐Hopfield (LBH) bands of N 2 . The spectra are from the High resolution Ionospheric and Thermospheric Spectrograph (HITS) instrument aboard the Advanced Research and Global Observation Satellite (ARGOS). The results indicate that on each day examined there was consistency between the remotely sensed thermospheric temperatures, the densities from coincident satellite drag measurements at adjacent altitudes, and the NRLMSISE‐00 model.