2011, Fiedler, J., Baumgarten, G., Berger, U., Hoffmann, P., Kaifler, N., Lübken, F.-J.

Noctilucent clouds (NLC) have been measured by the Rayleigh/Mie/Raman-lidar at the ALOMAR research facility in Northern Norway (69° N, 16° E). From 1997 to 2010 NLC were detected during more than 1850 h on 440 different days. Colocated MF-radar measurements and calculations with the Leibniz-Institute Middle Atmosphere (LIMA-) model are used to characterize the background atmosphere. Temperatures as well as horizontal winds at 83 km altitude show distinct differences during NLC observations compared to when NLC are absent. The seasonally averaged temperature is lower and the winds are stronger westward when NLC are detected. The wind separation is a robust feature as it shows up in measurements as well as in model results and it is consistent with the current understanding that lower temperatures support the existence of ice particles. For the whole 14-year data set there is no statistically significant relation between NLC occurrence and solar Lyman-α radiation. On the other hand NLC occurrence and temperatures at 83 km show a significant anti-correlation, which suggests that the thermal state plays a major role for the existence of ice particles and dominates the pure Lyman-α influence on water vapor during certain years. We find the seasonal mean NLC altitudes to be correlated to both Lyman-α radiation and temperature. NLC above ALOMAR are strongly influenced by atmospheric tides. The cloud water content varies by a factor of 2.8 over the diurnal cycle. Diurnal and semidiurnal amplitudes and phases show some pronounced year-to-year variations. In general, amplitudes as well as phases vary in a different manner. Amplitudes change by a factor of more than 3 and phases vary by up to 7 h. Such variability could impact long-term NLC observations which do not cover the full diurnal cycle.

2017, Renkwitz, Toralf, Schult, Carsten, Latteck, Ralph

The Middle Atmosphere Alomar Radar System (MAARSY) with its active phased array antenna is designed and used for studies of phenomena in the mesosphere and lower atmosphere. The flexible beam forming and steering combined with a large aperture array allows for observations with a high temporal and angular resolution. For both the analysis of the radar data and the configuration of experiments, the actual radiation pattern needs to be known. For that purpose, various simulations as well as passive and active experiments have been conducted. Here, results of meteor head echo observations are presented, which allow us to derive detailed information of the actual radiation pattern for different beam-pointing positions and the current health status of the entire radar. For MAARSY, the described method offers robust beam pointing and width estimations for a minimum of a few days of observations.

2013, Feng, Wuhu, Marsh, Daniel R., Chipperfield, Martyn P., Janches, Diego, Höffner, Josef, Yi, Fan, Plane, John M.C.

The first global model of meteoric iron in the atmosphere (WACCM-Fe) has been developed by combining three components: the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM), a description of the neutral and ion-molecule chemistry of iron in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT), and a treatment of the injection of meteoric constituents into the atmosphere. The iron chemistry treats seven neutral and four ionized iron containing species with 30 neutral and ion-molecule reactions. The meteoric input function (MIF), which describes the injection of Fe as a function of height, latitude, and day, is precalculated from an astronomical model coupled to a chemical meteoric ablation model (CABMOD). This newly developed WACCM-Fe model has been evaluated against a number of available ground-based lidar observations and performs well in simulating the mesospheric atomic Fe layer. The model reproduces the strong positive correlation of temperature and Fe density around the Fe layer peak and the large anticorrelation around 100 km. The diurnal tide has a significant effect in the middle of the layer, and the model also captures well the observed seasonal variations. However, the model overestimates the peak Fe+concentration compared with the limited rocket-borne mass spectrometer data available, although good agreement on the ion layer underside can be obtained by adjusting the rate coefficients for dissociative recombination of Fe-molecular ions with electrons. Sensitivity experiments with the same chemistry in a 1-D model are used to highlight significant remaining uncertainties in reaction rate coefficients, and to explore the dependence of the total Fe abundance on the MIF and rate of vertical transport.

2017, Strelnikov, Boris, Szewczyk, Artur, Strelnikova, Irina, Latteck, Ralph, Baumgarten, Gerd, Lübken, Franz-Josef, Rapp, Markus, Löhle, Stefan, Eberhart, Martin, Hoppe, Ulf-Peter, Dunker, Tim, Friedrich, Martin, Hedin, Jonas, Khaplanov, Mikhail, Gumbel, Jörg, Barjatya, Aroh

In summer 2013 the WADIS-1 sounding rocket campaign was conducted at the Andøya Space Center (ACS) in northern Norway (69° N, 16° E). Among other things, it addressed the question of the variability in mesosphere/lower thermosphere (MLT) turbulence, both in time and space. A unique feature of the WADIS project was multi-point turbulence sounding applying different measurement techniques including rocket-borne ionization gauges, VHF MAARSY radar, and VHF EISCAT radar near Tromsø. This allowed for horizontal variability to be observed in the turbulence field in the MLT at scales from a few to 100 km. We found that the turbulence dissipation rate, ε varied in space in a wavelike manner both horizontally and in the vertical direction. This wavelike modulation reveals the same vertical wavelengths as those seen in gravity waves. We also found that the vertical mean value of radar observations of ε agrees reasonably with rocket-borne measurements. In this way defined 〈εradar〉 value reveals clear tidal modulation and results in variation by up to 2 orders of magnitude with periods of 24 h. The 〈εradar〉 value also shows 12 h and shorter (1 to a few hours) modulations resulting in one decade of variation in 〈εradar〉 magnitude. The 24 h modulation appeared to be in phase with tidal change of horizontal wind observed by SAURA-MF radar. Such wavelike and, in particular, tidal modulation of the turbulence dissipation field in the MLT region inferred from our analysis is a new finding of this work.

2014, Demissie, T.D., Espy, P.J., Kleinknecht, N.H., Hatlen, M., Kaifler, N., Baumgarten, G.

Four years of noctilucent cloud (NLC) images from an automated digital camera in Trondheim and results from a ray-tracing model are used to extend the climatology of gravity waves to higher latitudes and to identify their sources during summertime. The climatology of the summertime gravity waves detected in NLC between 64 and 74° N is similar to that observed between 60 and 64° N by Pautet et al. (2011). The direction of propagation of gravity waves observed in the NLC north of 64° N is a continuation of the north and northeast propagation as observed in south of 64° N. However, a unique population of fast, short wavelength waves propagating towards the SW is observed in the NLC, which is consistent with transverse instabilities generated in situ by breaking gravity waves (Fritts and Alexander, 2003). The relative amplitude of the waves observed in the NLC Mie scatter have been combined with ray-tracing results to show that waves propagating from near the tropopause, rather than those resulting from secondary generation in the stratosphere or mesosphere, are more likely to be the sources of the prominent wave structures observed in the NLC. The coastal region of Norway along the latitude of 70° N is identified as the primary source region of the waves generated near the tropopause.

2010, Baumgarten, Gerd

A direct detection Doppler lidar for measuring wind speed in the middle atmosphere up to 80 km with 2 h resolution was implemented in the ALOMAR Rayleigh/Mie/Raman lidar (69° N, 16° E). The random error of the line of sight wind is about 0.6 m/s and 10 m/s at 49 km and 80 km, respectively. We use a Doppler Rayleigh Iodine Spectrometer (DoRIS) at the iodine line 1109 (~532.260 nm). DoRIS uses two branches of intensity cascaded channels to cover the dynamic range from 10 to 100 km altitude. The wind detection system was designed to extend the existing multi-wavelength observations of aerosol and temperature performed at wavelengths of 355 nm, 532 nm and 1064 nm. The lidar uses two lasers with a mean power of 14 W at 532 nm each and two 1.8 m diameter tiltable telescopes. Below about 49 km altitude the accuracy and time resolution is limited by the maximum count rate of the detectors used and not by the number of photons available. We report about the first simultaneous Rayleigh temperature and wind measurements by lidar in the strato- and mesosphere on 17 and 23 January 2009.

2016, Dawkins, E.C.M., Plane, J.M.C., Chipperfield, M.P., Feng, W., Marsh, D.R., Höffner, J., Janches, D.

The meteoric metal layers (Na, Fe, and K)—which form as a result of the ablation of incoming meteors—act as unique tracers for chemical and dynamical processes that occur within the upper mesosphere/lower thermosphere region. In this work, we examine whether these metal layers are sensitive indicators of decadal long-term changes within the upper atmosphere. Output from a whole-atmosphere climate model is used to assess the response of the Na, K, and Fe layers across a 50 year period (1955–2005). At short timescales, the K layer has previously been shown to exhibit a very different seasonal behavior compared to the other metals. Here we show that this unusual behavior is also exhibited at longer timescales (both the ~11 year solar cycle and 50 year periods), where K displays a much more pronounced response to atmospheric temperature changes than either Na or Fe. The contrasting solar cycle behavior of the K and Na layers predicted by the model is confirmed using satellite and lidar observations for the period 2004–2013.

2013, Wilms, H., Rapp, M., Hoffmann, P., Fiedler, J., Baumgarten, G.

The influence of gravity waves on noctilucent clouds (NLC) at ALOMAR (69° N) is analysed by relating gravity wave activity to NLC occurrence from common-volume measurements. Gravity wave kinetic energies are derived from MF-radar wind data and filtered into different period ranges by wavelet transformation. From the dataset covering the years 1999–2011, a direct correlation between gravity wave kinetic energy and NLC occurrence is not found, i.e., NLC appear independently of the simultaneously measured gravity wave kinetic energy. In addition, gravity wave activity is divided into weak and strong activity as compared to a 13 yr mean. The NLC occurrence rates during strong and weak activity are calculated separately for a given wave period and compared to each other. Again, for the full dataset no dependence of NLC occurrence on relative gravity wave activity is found. However, concentrating on 12 h of NLC detections during 2008, we do find an NLC-amplification with strong long-period gravity wave occurrence. Our analysis hence confirms previous findings that in general NLC at ALOMAR are not predominantly driven by gravity waves while exceptions to this rule are at least possible.

2016, Gerding, Michael, Kopp, Maren, Höffner, Josef, Baumgarten, Kathrin, Lübken, Franz-Josef

Temperature measurements by lidar are an important tool for the understanding of the mean state of the atmosphere as well as the propagation of gravity waves and thermal tides. Though, mesospheric lidar soundings are often limited to nighttime conditions (e.g., solar zenith angle  >  96°) due to the low signal-to-noise ratio during the day. By this, examination of long-period gravity waves and tides is inhibited, as well as soundings in summer at polar latitudes. We developed a new daylight-capable Rayleigh–Mie–Raman (RMR) lidar at our site in Kühlungsborn, Germany (54° N, 12° E), that is in routine operation since 2010 for temperature soundings up to 90 km or  ∼  75 km (night or day) and soundings of noctilucent clouds. Here we describe the setup of the system with special emphasis on the daylight suppression methods like spatial and spectral filtering. The small bandwidth of the Fabry–Pérot etalons for spectral filtering of the received signal induces an altitude-dependent transmission of the detector. As a result, the signal is no longer proportional to the air density and the hydrostatic integration of the profile results in systematic temperature errors of up to 4 K. We demonstrate a correction method and the validity of correction by comparison with data obtained by our co-located, nighttime-only RMR lidar where no etalon is installed. As a further example a time series of temperature profiles between 20 and 80 km is presented for day and night of 9–10 March 2014. Together with the other data of March 2014 these profiles are used to calculate tidal amplitudes. It is found that tidal amplitudes vary between ∼  1 and 5 K depending on altitude.

2016, Fytterer, T., Bender, S., Berger, U., Nieder, H., Sinnhuber, M., Wissing, J.M.

The 3-D global chemistry and transport model (3dCTM) was used to investigate NO, OH, and O3 from January 2002 to May 2010 between 60 km and 133 km. Their daytime and nighttime mean zonal means (55°–75° geomagnetic latitude) were analyzed with respect to short-term variations associated with particle precipitation. The corresponding ionization rates were derived from the 3-D atmospheric ionization module Osnabrück (AIMOS), which is based on particle flux measurements. The trace gas variations with respect to their background were investigated by using a superposed epoch analysis. The 27 day signature associated with particle precipitation is found in NO, while it is only indicated in OH and O3 during winter. A varying solar spectrum associated with the 11 year solar cycle causes modifications of this signal up to 10%, while the main patterns are conserved. Published observations show a clear 27 day signal, qualitatively agreeing with the model results at altitudes >70 km except for O3 in Northern Hemisphere winter. Further differences occur with respect to the magnitude of the trace gas variations, primarily attributed to the different trace gas background and dynamical variations of the background atmosphere. Absolute OH variations are overestimated by the 3dCTM during winter, while the opposite is true for O3. These differences might originate from an unknown offset in AIMOS, incorrect chemical reaction rates, a different background of H2O and O3, and the model dynamics. However, their nonlinear relationship and their altitude of largest response are qualitatively captured in Southern Hemisphere winter.