All Physics Faculty Publications
Document Type
Article
Journal/Book Title/Conference
Annales Geophysicae
Volume
33
Issue
3
Publisher
European Geosciences Union
Publication Date
3-19-2015
First Page
363
Last Page
369
Abstract
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. To shed light on the nature of the warming episode, we show that the recently reported prolonged global surface temperature cooling after the Mt Pinatubo eruption can also be very well represented by the same response function.
Recommended Citation
She, Chiao Y.; Krueger, D. A.; and Yuan, Tao, "Long-term midlatitude mesopause region temperature trend deduced from quarter century (1990-2014) Na lidar observations" (2015). All Physics Faculty Publications. Paper 2017.
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/physics_facpub/2017
