HR: 17:00h
AN: SA14A-05 INVITED    [Abstracts]
TI: Initial results of global imaging of PMCs from the CIPS experiment on the AIM satellite
AU: * Rusch, D
AF: University of Colorado - LASP, 1234 Innovation Drive, Boulder, CO 80303, United States
AU: McClintock, W
AF: University of Colorado - LASP, 1234 Innovation Drive, Boulder, CO 80303, United States
AU: Thomas, G
AF: University of Colorado - LASP, 1234 Innovation Drive, Boulder, CO 80303, United States
AU: Bailey, S
AF: Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, 302 Whittemore Hall Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, United States
AU: Merkel, A
AF: University of Colorado - LASP, 1234 Innovation Drive, Boulder, CO 80303, United States
AU: Randall, C
AF: University of Colorado - LASP, 1234 Innovation Drive, Boulder, CO 80303, United States
AU: Russell III, J
AF: Center for Atmospheric Sciences, Hampton University, Hampton, VA 23668, United States
AU: Jeppesen, C
AF: University of Colorado - LASP, 1234 Innovation Drive, Boulder, CO 80303, United States
AU: Callan, M
AF: University of Colorado - LASP, 1234 Innovation Drive, Boulder, CO 80303, United States
AB: The Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) spacecraft was launched into sun-synchronous orbit April 25, 2007. The objectives of AIM are to study why polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs) form and why they vary. One of the three instruments on AIM is the Cloud Imaging and Particle Size (CIPS) experiment. We will describe the CIPS instrument; a 4 camera wide-field UV imager designed to measure PMC morphology and particle properties. We will present the first science results from CIPS including new PMC features, particle size, and ice content. The CIPS images show oval cloud features with thin bright walls with dimmer clouds inside with sizes that vary from a few 10's of km to hundreds of km; very bright, spatially small (~10 km radius) clouds; and large (~10,000 sq. km) regions with no clouds present in the heart of the cloud season.
DE: 0300 ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE
DE: 0340 Middle atmosphere: composition and chemistry
DE: 0394 Instruments and techniques
DE: 3332 Mesospheric dynamics
SC: SPA-Aeronomy [SA]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting