Location
Salt Lake Community College
Start Date
5-7-2007 3:20 PM
Description
Latitudinal characterizations of twilight mesospheric hydroxyl volume emission rate (VER) from year 2002 to 2005, are made possible using the SABER (Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry) sensor, a ten-channel infrared radiometer onboard NASA’s TIMED (Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics) satellite. Implementation of a binning algorithm over time and geography provides global twilight characteristics from SABER radiometric channel 9 data, centered at ¸ = 1.64 ¹m for the OH (5,3) and OH (4,2) Meinel airglow band infrared emissions, and SABER radiometric channel 8 data, centered at ¸ = 2.06 ¹m for the OH (9,7) and OH (8,6) emissions. The findings show an equatorial effect in both infrared radiometric channels. Faster rise rates are observed at sunset while slower fall rates are observed at sunrise near the equator when compared with rates calculated at midlatitudes. Both hydroxyl channels show the most distinct sunset equatorial effects in the year 2002, and the most distinct sunrise equatorial effects in the year 2005.
Latitudinal Analysis of Twilight Hydroxyl Airglow
Salt Lake Community College
Latitudinal characterizations of twilight mesospheric hydroxyl volume emission rate (VER) from year 2002 to 2005, are made possible using the SABER (Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry) sensor, a ten-channel infrared radiometer onboard NASA’s TIMED (Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics) satellite. Implementation of a binning algorithm over time and geography provides global twilight characteristics from SABER radiometric channel 9 data, centered at ¸ = 1.64 ¹m for the OH (5,3) and OH (4,2) Meinel airglow band infrared emissions, and SABER radiometric channel 8 data, centered at ¸ = 2.06 ¹m for the OH (9,7) and OH (8,6) emissions. The findings show an equatorial effect in both infrared radiometric channels. Faster rise rates are observed at sunset while slower fall rates are observed at sunrise near the equator when compared with rates calculated at midlatitudes. Both hydroxyl channels show the most distinct sunset equatorial effects in the year 2002, and the most distinct sunrise equatorial effects in the year 2005.