Collaborative Research: CEDAR--Airglow Imaging of Gravity Wave and Instability Dynamics

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Turbulent structuring processes occur throughout the atmosphere, oceans, and other geophysical plasmas and fluids. Their effects range from transport and dissipation of energy to formation of visually striking structures similar to those formed when ocean waves break. This work will address a long-standing problem of atmospheric turbulence by exploring high-resolution imaging observations of atmospheric structures. Atmospheric instability processes are thought to be responsible for formation and breaking of atmospheric structures observed as faint optical emissions emitted by atoms and molecules in the mesosphere-lower-thermosphere (MLT) region during the night called airglow. This project will utilize the new state-of-the-art Aerospace Infrared Camera 2 (AIC2) imager at the Andes Lidar Observatory (ALO) in Chile complemented by the Mesosphere Temperature Mapper (MTM), the Na lidar, and meteor radar at ALO. This project will develop better understanding of the atmospheric instability processes that are thought to be responsible for formation of turbulent structures. These structures play a major role in vertical transports of energy and momentum. This research will provide new datasets to the community and improve the ability to observe small-scale processes in the critical MLT region. This project will also promote education by supporting a graduate student and contribute to broadening participation by supporting female scientists. The goals of the research are (1) to obtain AIC2 imaging of atmospheric structures down to pixel size of 30 m to characterize instability evolution, (2) to obtain correlative measurements by the MTM airglow temperature imager at two altitudes to determine wave and instability features, (3) to utilize the Na lidar and meteor radar measurements to characterize background atmospheric conditions. The work will involve (1) combining data from AIC2, MTM, Na lidar, and meteor radar, (2) identification of events that exhibit small-scale transient responses, and (3) analysis of the identified events to estimate instability scales.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.