CEDAR: Optical Measurements of Mesospheric Gravity Waves and Their Relationship to the Occurrence of In-Situ Temperature Inversions and Vertical Wind Shears

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The investigators will study short period gravity waves using data from a clustered set of instruments, including an all-sky imager, a Rayleigh lidar, a Doppler interferometer, and a meteor radar. Short period gravity waves oscillations contribute significantly to the dynamics in the 80 to 150 km altitude region of Earth's atmosphere. Several important parameters are responsible for wave propagations, such as local temperature and wind velocity. Information about these parameters is needed to describe fully and to understand more thoroughly the wave propagation conditions. This study uses co-located instruments capable of making such measurements along with data analysis and numerical modeling. The instruments are located in the vicinity of the Millstone Hill Observatory in Massachusetts. The joint measurements will be used to investigate the relationship between the occurrence of monochromatic gravity waves in the nighttime mesospheric sodium and oxygen emissions and the simultaneous temperature and wind structure. The results are important for understanding dynamical processes in the middle atmosphere and how they are influenced by the temperature and composition of the atmosphere.