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Planetary‐wave modulation of PMSE
Author(s) -
Kirkwood S.,
Réchou A.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/1998gl900198
Subject(s) - mesopause , mesosphere , amplitude , atmospheric sciences , environmental science , polar , physics , radar , climatology , geology , stratosphere , astronomy , optics , telecommunications , computer science
Variations in PMSE (Polar Mesosphere Summer Echo) occurrence with 4–6 day periods were observed by the ESRAD radar during the summer of 1997. These are compared with temperature fluctuations in 5‐day planetary waves extracted from the UKMO assimilated global data analyses. At the beginning and end of the PMSE season, the PMSE variations are closely anti correlated with temperature variations associated with 5‐day planetary waves at the 1 mb level. The planetary wave amplitudes expected at the mesopause are 1–2 K. This is found, by comparison with the seasonal decay of PMSE as the temperature rises at the end of the summer, to be sufficient to explain the observed 5–10% amplitude fluctuations in PMSE daily occurrence.