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    Semidiurnal solar tide differences between fall and spring transition times in the Northern Hemisphere
    (Göttingen : Copernicus GmbH, 2018) Conte, J.F.; Chau, J.L.; Laskar, F.I.; Stober, G.; Schmidt, H.; Brown, P.
    We present a study of the semidiurnal solar tide (S2) during the fall and spring transition times in the Northern Hemisphere. The tides have been obtained from wind measurements provided by three meteor radars located at Andenes (69° N, 16° E), Juliusruh (54° N, 13° E) and Tavistock (42° N, 81° W). During the fall, S2 is characterized by a sudden and pronounced decrease occurring every year and at all height levels. The spring transition also shows a decrease in S2, but not sudden and that ascends from lower to higher altitudes during an interval of ∼ 15 to 40 days. To assess contributions of different semidiurnal tidal components, we have examined a 20-year free-run simulation by the Hamburg Model of the Neutral and Ionized Atmosphere (HAMMONIA). We found that the differences exhibited by the S2 tide between equinox times are mainly due to distinct behaviors of the migrating semidiurnal and the non-migrating westward-propagating wave number 1 tidal components (SW2 and SW1, respectively). Specifically, during the fall both SW2 and SW1 decrease, while during the springtime SW2 decreases but SW1 remains approximately constant or decreases only slightly. The decrease shown by SW1 during the fall occurs later than that of SW2 and S2, which indicates that the behavior of S2 is mainly driven by the migrating component. Nonetheless, the influence of SW1 is necessary to explain the behavior of S2 during the spring. In addition, a strong shift in the phase of S2 (of SW2 in the simulations) is also observed during the fall. Our meteor radar wind measurements show more gravity wave activity in the fall than during the spring, which might be indicating that the fall decrease is partly due to interactions between SW2 and gravity waves. © 2018 Author(s).
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    Mesospheric anomalous diffusion during noctilucent cloud scenarios
    (Göttingen : Copernicus GmbH, 2019) Laskar, F.I.; Stober, G.; Fiedler, J.; Oppenheim, M.M.; Chau, J.L.; Pallamraju, D.; Pedatella, N.M.; Tsutsumi, M.; Renkwitz, T.
    The Andenes specular meteor radar shows meteor trail diffusion rates increasing on average by about 10% at times and locations where a lidar observes noctilucent clouds (NLCs). This high-latitude effect has been attributed to the presence of charged NLC after exploring possible contributions from thermal tides. To make this claim, the current study evaluates data from three stations at high, middle, and low latitudes for the years 2012 to 2016 to show that NLC influence on the meteor trail diffusion is independent of thermal tides. The observations also show that the meteor trail diffusion enhancement during NLC cover exists only at high latitudes and near the peaks of NLC layers. This paper discusses a number of possible explanations for changes in the regions with NLCs and leans towards the hypothesis that the relative abundance of background electron density plays the leading role. A more accurate model of the meteor trail diffusion around NLC particles would help researchers determine mesospheric temperature and neutral density profiles from meteor radars at high latitudes. © 2019 Author(s).