Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres

Volume

121

Issue

9

Publisher

American Geophysical Union

Publication Date

5-2016

Award Number

NSF, Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences 9203034; NSF, Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences 93022118; NSF, Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences 9714789; NSF, Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences 01234145; Utah NASA Space Grant Consortium 120845

Funder

NSF, Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences; Utah NASA Space Grant Consortium

First Page

4627

Last Page

4636

Abstract

While the mesospheric temperature anomalies associated with Sudden Stratospheric Warmings (SSWs) have been observed extensively in the polar regions, observations of these anomalies at midlatitudes are much more sparse. The Rayleigh-scatter lidar system, which operated at the Center for Atmospheric and Space Sciences on the campus of Utah State University (41.7°N, 111.8°W), collected a very dense set of observations, from 1993 to 2004, over a 45–90 km altitude range. This paper focuses on Rayleigh lidar temperatures derived during the six major SSW events that occurred during the 11 year period when the lidar was operating and aims to characterize the local response to these midlatitude SSW events. In order to determine the characteristics of these mesospheric temperature anomalies, comparisons were made between the temperatures from individual nights during a SSW event and a climatological temperature profile. An overall disturbance pattern was observed in the mesospheric temperatures associated with SSW events, including coolings in the upper mesosphere and warmings in the upper stratosphere and lower mesosphere, both comparable to those seen at polar latitudes.

Comments

Copyright by the American Geophysical Union. Publisher version is available for download.

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