First measurements of tides in the stratosphere and lower mesosphere by ground-based Doppler microwave wind radiometry

Hagen, Jonas; Hocke, Klemens; Stober, Gunter; Pfreundschuh, Simon; Murk, Axel; Kämpfer, Niklaus

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-2367-2020

Articles | Volume 20, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-2367-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-2367-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 4

Research article

|

28 Feb 2020

Research article |

| 28 Feb 2020

First measurements of tides in the stratosphere and lower mesosphere by ground-based Doppler microwave wind radiometry

Jonas Hagen, Klemens Hocke, Gunter Stober, Simon Pfreundschuh, Axel Murk, and Niklaus Kämpfer

Data sets

Wind fields from aggregated retrievals from the WIRA-C Doppler wind radiometer in tropical and arctic lattitudes Jonas Hagen https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3468900

Short summary

The middle atmosphere (30 to 70 km altitude) is stratified and, despite very strong horizontal winds, there is less mixing between the horizontal layers. An important driver for the energy exchange between the layers in this regime is atmospheric tides, which are waves that are driven by the diurnal cycle of solar heating. We measure these tides in the wind field for the first time using a ground-based passive instrument. Ultimately, such measurements could be used to improve atmospheric models.