HR: 0800h
AN: SA31A-1112    [Abstracts]
TI: Rayleigh-Lidar Observations of Mesospheric Mid-latitude Density Climatology Above Utah State University
AU: * Lundell, E M
EM: iamcire@yahoo.com
AF: Utah State University, Center for Atmospheric and Space Sciences, 4405 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT 84322-4405 United States
AU: Wickwar, V B
EM: vincent.wickwar@usu.edu
AF: Utah State University, Center for Atmospheric and Space Sciences, 4405 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT 84322-4405 United States
AB: Lidars have been used extensively to derive temperatures, but not absolute densities, in the mesospheric region of the atmosphere. We used observations since 1993 with the Rayleigh-scatter lidar at the Atmospheric Lidar Observatory (ALO) at Utah State University ($41.7\deg$N, $111.8\deg$W) to create an absolute density climatology between 45 and $\sim$95 km. The observations provide profiles of relative density to which an absolute scale is attached by normalizing the profiles at 45 km to the densities in the MSISe00 empirical model. We examine the density variations during the climatological year and from year to year. For instance, the annual density variation at 75 km is $\sim$60$%$ with a maximum in June and a minimum in early spring. The absolute densities are also compared with the MSISe00 model and are found to deviate by as much as 25$%$.
DE: 3360 Remote sensing
DE: 0350 Pressure, density, and temperature
SC: SPA-Aeronomy [SA]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting