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In this paper we report winds and temperature in the mesopause region (80–102 km) over full diurnal cycles during the 2009 major Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW) at Fort Collins (41°N, 105°W). The measurements were made with the Colorado State University (CSU) sodium Doppler wind‐temperature lidar. We deduce the diurnal mean wind and temperature profiles by removing the tidal components from the 24‐h continuous observations and present their anomalous behaviors in connection with this event. These mean wind and temperature measurements reveal significant anomalies in the mesopause region: the mean temperature at 80 km was approximately 30 K lower than the climatological mean; the mean zonal wind ranged between ∼ −10 to 0 m/s from 80 to 97 km and then turned eastward in lower thermosphere in a reversal of the climatological mean wind profile. We further use observations from the TIMED/SABER satellite observations and simulations from the WACCM model to investigate the global structure of this dynamical anomaly at Fort Collins. The satellite observations and model reveal that the anomaly is part of a disturbance that extended from the polar region to Fort Collins. These simultaneous wind‐ and temperature‐lidar observations document the direct impact of a major SSW on the dynamic and thermal circulation of the midlatitude mesopause region. Key Points Lidar observed temperature, wind anomalous behaviors during 2009 SSW Satellite observations confirmed such anomalous behaviors were due to SSW Model and satellite prove planetary wave extends the SSW system to midlatitude

The Na lidar facility at Colorado State University (41°N, 105°W) started the full diurnal cycle observations of mesopause region temperature and zonal and meridional winds as well as mesospheric Na density in May 2002. In this paper, monthly means and seasonal variations of the density of mesospheric Na based on lidar observations from May 2002 to December 2008 are reported along with the amplitude and phase of tidal period perturbations. The revealed seasonal behaviors of mesospheric Na layer are generally consistent with published nocturnal climatology, with thick layers and high abundance in winter but thin layers and low abundance near summer. Tidal amplitudes of Na density are large in February–April and August–November with a dominant peak between 85 and 90 km; they are weak in summer months (May–July). The Na density tidal phase profiles, while showing downward progression, show a significant and abrupt phase shift (ideally 180 degrees). The center altitude of this phase shifting (termed switching altitude) is found to coincide with the fractional tidal amplitude (tidal amplitude over diurnal mean) minimum about 2–4 km above the centroid altitude of the associated Na layer. Taking advantage of the established temperature tidal climatology deduced from the same data set, the tidal phase behaviors between temperature and Na density and associated fractional Na density tidal amplitudes are discussed in terms of the theoretical prediction by Gardner and Shelton (1985). Key Points Mesospheric mean sodium density seasonal variation Sodium density tidal period perturbations Sodium density tides' relationship with temperature tide

The long-term midlatitude temperature trend between 85 and 105 km is deduced from 25 years (March 1990–December 2014) of Na Lidar observations. With a strong warming episode in the 1990s, the time series was least-square fitted to an 11-parameter nonlinear function. This yields a cooling trend starting from an insignificant value of 0.64 ± 0.99 K decade−1 at 85 km, increasing to a maximum of 2.8 ± 0.58 K decade−1 between 91 and 93 km, and then decreasing to a warming trend above 103 km. The geographic altitude dependence of the trend is in general agreement with model predictions. To shed light on the nature of the warming episode, we show that the recently reported prolonged global surface temperature cooling after the Mt Pinatubo eruption can also be very well represented by the same response function.

Among the processes governing the energy balance in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT), the quenching of CO2(nu2) vibrational levels by collisions with O atoms plays an important role. However, there is a factor of 3-4 discrepancy between the laboratory measurements of the CO2-O quenching rate coefficient, k(sub VT),and its value estimated from the atmospheric observations. In this study, we retrieve k(sub VT) in the altitude region85-105 km from the coincident SABER/TIMED and Fort Collins sodium lidar observations by minimizing the difference between measured and simulated broadband limb 15 micron radiation. The averaged k(sub VT) value obtained in this work is 6.5 +/- 1.5 X 10(exp -12) cubic cm/s that is close to other estimates of this coefficient from the atmospheric observations.However, the retrieved k(sub VT) also shows altitude dependence and varies from 5.5 1 +/-1 10(exp -12) cubic cm/s at 90 km to 7.9 +/- 1.2 10(exp -12) cubic cm/s at 105 km. Obtained results demonstrate the deficiency in current non-LTE modeling of the atmospheric 15 micron radiation, based on the application of the CO2-O quenching and excitation rates, which are linked by the detailed balance relation. We discuss the possible model improvements, among them accounting for the interaction of the non-thermal oxygen atoms with CO2 molecules.

Gravity wave forcing (GWF), which is the primary driver of the mesospheric and lower thermospheric (MLT) circulation, is difficult to measure directly. In this work, the zonal mean GWF at extratropical MLT is deduced from measured winds using momentum balance. With the GWF dominating in the MLT, the zonally averaged zonal momentum equation can be simplified to a balance relation between the GWF and the Coriolis force in the extratropics. The meridional advection of zonal momentum makes a higher order contribution to the momentum balance, especially at places where the GWF maximizes. This method is tested with WACCM3 model and preliminary results are obtained from wind measurements by CSU Na lidar and TIMED/TIDI.

During the 9‐day continuous campaign in September 2003, the Colorado State University sodium lidar observed significant short‐term tidal variability in both diurnal and semidiurnal tides above 85 km on days 265–268. Both diurnal and semidiurnal amplitudes dramatically increased on day 267 with a continuous phase advance in diurnal tidal harmonics, causing local atmosphere to become dynamically unstable. Following the dynamical instability associated with tides, we observed an equally dramatic decrease in diurnal amplitude, which was accompanied by rapid and continuous phase retardation at 87 km on day 268; the accompanying diurnal phase profiles changed from propagating mode to evanescent mode. Since the time scale of the observed variability during days 265–268 is less than 1 day, gravity wave/tidal interaction at least is partially responsible for the observed variability. The observed changes in tidal wind amplitudes and phases were observed to correlate with gravity wave (GW) activities and the direction of GW momentum, exhibited and discerned concurrently by an OH all‐sky imager at nearby Yucca Ridge station, consistent with well‐known models of tidal/GW interactions. The stability analysis in the night of 267, when both diurnal and semidiurnal reached the maximum amplitudes, revealed that the running daily tidal waves alone, superimposed with the associated mean state, could force the atmosphere into local dynamical instability near 90–95 km. The eddy diffusion associated with the instability is believed to have caused a strong dissipation of diurnal tide as observed on day 268.

Comparisons between tidal wind signatures diagnosed from satellite and ground‐based observations and a general circulations model for two (September–October 2005, March–April 2007) of the four Climate and Weather of the Sun‐Earth System (CAWSES) Global Tidal Campaign observation periods are presented (CAWSES is an international program sponsored by Scientific Committee on Solar‐Terrestrial Physics). Specific comparisons are made between model (extended Canadian Middle Atmosphere Model), satellite (Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED)), meteor, MF and incoherent scatter radar (ISR), and lidar tidal signatures in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere. The satellite and ground‐based signatures are in good agreement and demonstrate for the first time that the tidal wind fields observed by both types of observations are consistent with each other. This is the first time that such agreement has been reported and effectively resolves the long‐standing issue between ground‐based radar and satellite optical measurements of winds. This level of agreement, which has proved elusive in the past, was accomplished by superposing the significant tidal components from the satellite analyses to reconstruct the fields observed by the ground stations. Particularly striking in these comparisons is the extent to which the superposed fields show strong geographic variability. This variability is also seen in the component superpositions generated from the extended Canadian Middle Atmosphere Model (eCMAM), although differences in the geographic patterns are evident.

This paper presents a climatology of the mesospheric sodium layer built from the processing of 7 years of GOMOS data. With respect to preliminary results already published for the year 2003, a more careful analysis was applied to the averaging of occultations inside the climatological bins (10° in latitude-1 month). Also, the slant path absorption lines of the Na doublet around 589 nm shows evidence of partial saturation that was responsible for an underestimation of the Na concentration in our previous results. The sodium climatology has been validated with respect to the Fort Collins lidar measurements and, to a lesser extent, to the OSIRIS 2003–2004 data. Despite the important natural sodium variability, we have shown that the Na vertical column has a marked semi-annual oscillation at low latitudes that merges into an annual oscillation in the polar regions,a spatial distribution pattern that was unreported so far. The sodium layer seems to be clearly influenced by the mesospheric global circulation and the altitude of the layer shows clear signs of subsidence during polar winter. The climatology has been parameterized by time-latitude robust fits to allow for easy use. Taking into account the non-linearity of the transmittance due to partial saturation, an experimental approach is proposed to derive mesospheric temperatures from limb remote sounding measurements.

Ripples as seen in airglow imagers are small wavy structures with short horizontal wavelengths (<15 km). Ripples are thought to form as the result of local instabilities, which are believed to occur when the amplitude of gravity waves becomes large enough. We have investigated ripple formation based on years of airglow imager observations located at Fort Collins, Colorado (41° N, 105° W) and Misato Observatory, Japan (34° N, 135° E)/Shigaraki MU Observatory (35° N, 136° E). Na temperature-wind lidar observations are employed to detect convective and dynamic instabilities in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) region over Fort Collins, Colorado. Seasonal variation of the ripple occurrence in Colorado is compared to that of the lidar-measured instability. The occurrence frequency of ripples varies semiannually, with maxima occurring during solstices and minima during equinoxes in both Colorado and Japan. However, the probability of convective and dynamic instabilities varies annually with a peak in Colorado winter. The seasonal variation of the occurrence frequency of ripples correlates with that of the gravity wave variances in the MLT. Ripple occurrence over Colorado also shows strong local time dependence, but it bears little resemblance to the local time dependence of instability probability.

In this paper, we consider a class of penalized NCP-functions, which includes several existing well-known NCP-functions as special cases. The merit function induced by this class of NCP-functions is shown to have bounded level sets and provide error bounds under mild conditions. A derivative free algorithm is also proposed, its global convergence is proved and numerical performance compared with those based on some existing NCP-functions is reported.