Articles | Volume 24, issue 24
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-14029-2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-14029-2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| Highlight paper
| 
17 Dec 2024
Research article | Highlight paper |
| 17 Dec 2024
| 17 Dec 2024
Lidar measurements of noctilucent clouds at Río Grande, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina
Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany
Bernd Kaifler
Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany
Markus Rapp
Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany
Guiping Liu
Heliophysics Science Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA
Diego Janches
Heliophysics Science Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA
Gerd Baumgarten
Leibniz Institute of Atmospheric Physics, University of Rostock, Kühlungsborn, Germany
Jose-Luis Hormaechea
Estación Astronomica Rio Grande, Tierra del Fuego, Rio Grande, Argentina
Facultad de Ciencias Astronomicas y Geofisicas, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, La Plata, Argentina
CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina
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Eframir Franco-Diaz, Michael Gerding, Laura Holt, Irina Strelnikova, Robin Wing, Gerd Baumgarten, and Franz-Josef Lübken
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 1543–1558, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-1543-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-1543-2024, 2024
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Mohamed Mossad, Irina Strelnikova, Robin Wing, and Gerd Baumgarten
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 783–799, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-783-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-783-2024, 2024
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Ashique Vellalassery, Gerd Baumgarten, Mykhaylo Grygalashvyly, and Franz-Josef Lübken
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Benjamin Witschas, Sonja Gisinger, Stephan Rahm, Andreas Dörnbrack, David C. Fritts, and Markus Rapp
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16, 1087–1101, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-1087-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-1087-2023, 2023
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Natalie Kaifler, Bernd Kaifler, Markus Rapp, and David C. Fritts
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 949–961, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-949-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-949-2023, 2023
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We used a lidar to measure polar mesospheric clouds from a balloon floating in the upper stratosphere. The thin-layered ice clouds at 83 km altitude are perturbed by waves. The high-resolution lidar soundings reveal small-scale structures induced by the breaking of those waves. We study these patterns and find that they occur very often. We show their morphology and discuss associated dynamical physical processes, which help to interpret case studies and to guide modelling.
Hans-Christoph Lachnitt, Peter Hoor, Daniel Kunkel, Martina Bramberger, Andreas Dörnbrack, Stefan Müller, Philipp Reutter, Andreas Giez, Thorsten Kaluza, and Markus Rapp
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 355–373, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-355-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-355-2023, 2023
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Atmos. Meas. Tech., 15, 5769–5792, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-5769-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-5769-2022, 2022
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Carsten Baumann, Antti Kero, Shikha Raizada, Markus Rapp, Michael P. Sulzer, Pekka T. Verronen, and Juha Vierinen
Ann. Geophys., 40, 519–530, https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-40-519-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-40-519-2022, 2022
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The Arecibo radar was used to probe free electrons of the ionized atmosphere between 70 and 100 km altitude. This is also the altitude region were meteors evaporate and form secondary particulate matter, the so-called meteor smoke particles (MSPs). Free electrons attach to these MSPs when the sun is below the horizon and cause a drop in the number of free electrons, which are the subject of these measurements. We also identified a different number of free electrons during sunset and sunrise.
Neil P. Hindley, Nicholas J. Mitchell, Neil Cobbett, Anne K. Smith, Dave C. Fritts, Diego Janches, Corwin J. Wright, and Tracy Moffat-Griffin
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 9435–9459, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-9435-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-9435-2022, 2022
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We present observations of winds in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) from a recently installed meteor radar on the remote island of South Georgia (54° S, 36° W). We characterise mean winds, tides, planetary waves, and gravity waves in the MLT at this location and compare our measured winds with a leading climate model. We find that the observed wintertime winds are unexpectedly reversed from model predictions, probably because of missing impacts of secondary gravity waves in the model.
Anna Lange, Gerd Baumgarten, Alexei Rozanov, and Christian von Savigny
Ann. Geophys., 40, 407–419, https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-40-407-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-40-407-2022, 2022
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We investigate the influence of different parameters on the colour of noctilucent clouds (highest clouds in the atmosphere), using radiative transfer calculations. We determined the effect of the particle size, optical depth, single scattering/multiple scattering and ozone. For sufficiently large optical depth and for specific viewing geometries, ozone plays only a minor role in the blueish colour of noctilucent clouds (new result).
Kevin Ohneiser, Albert Ansmann, Bernd Kaifler, Alexandra Chudnovsky, Boris Barja, Daniel A. Knopf, Natalie Kaifler, Holger Baars, Patric Seifert, Diego Villanueva, Cristofer Jimenez, Martin Radenz, Ronny Engelmann, Igor Veselovskii, and Félix Zamorano
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 7417–7442, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-7417-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-7417-2022, 2022
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We present and discuss 2 years of long-term lidar observations of the largest stratospheric perturbation by wildfire smoke ever observed. The smoke originated from the record-breaking Australian fires in 2019–2020 and affects climate conditions and even the ozone layer in the Southern Hemisphere. The obvious link between dense smoke occurrence in the stratosphere and strong ozone depletion found in the Arctic and in the Antarctic in 2020 can be regarded as a new aspect of climate change.
Stefanie Knobloch, Bernd Kaifler, and Markus Rapp
Atmos. Meas. Tech. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2021-310, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2021-310, 2022
Preprint withdrawn
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The study tests the quality of temperature measurements from the airborne Rayleigh lidar ALIMA. The ALIMA system was first used during the SouthTRAC campaign in September 2019 in the vicinity of the Southern Andes, Drake Passage and Antarctic Peninsula. The raw lidar measurements are additionally simulated based on reanalysis data for one research flight. Different types of uncertainty influencing the accuracy of the temperature measurements are studied, e.g. atmospheric and technical sources.
Gunter Stober, Ales Kuchar, Dimitry Pokhotelov, Huixin Liu, Han-Li Liu, Hauke Schmidt, Christoph Jacobi, Kathrin Baumgarten, Peter Brown, Diego Janches, Damian Murphy, Alexander Kozlovsky, Mark Lester, Evgenia Belova, Johan Kero, and Nicholas Mitchell
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 13855–13902, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-13855-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-13855-2021, 2021
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The biasing effect in meteor radar temperature has been a pressing issue for the last 2 decades. This paper has addressed the underlying reasons for such a biasing effect on both theoretical and experimental grounds. An improved statistical method has been developed which allows atmospheric temperatures at around 90 km to be measured with meteor radar in an independent way such that any subsequent bias correction or calibration is no longer required.
Bernd Kaifler and Natalie Kaifler
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 14, 1715–1732, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-1715-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-1715-2021, 2021
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This paper describes the Compact Rayleigh Autonomous Lidar (CORAL), which is the first lidar instrument to make fully automatic high-resolution measurements of atmospheric density and temperature between 15 and 90 km altitude. CORAL achieves a much larger measurement cadence than conventional lidars and thus facilitates studies of rare atmospheric phenomena.
Mareike Heckl, Andreas Fix, Matthias Jirousek, Franz Schreier, Jian Xu, and Markus Rapp
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 14, 1689–1713, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-1689-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-1689-2021, 2021
Joan Stude, Heinfried Aufmhoff, Hans Schlager, Markus Rapp, Frank Arnold, and Boris Strelnikov
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 14, 983–993, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-983-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-983-2021, 2021
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In this paper we describe the instrument ROMARA and show data from the first flight on a research rocket.
On the way through the atmosphere, the instrument detects positive and negative, natural occurring ions before returning back to ground.
ROMARA was successfully launched together with other instruments into a special radar echo.
We detected typical, light ions of positive and negative charge and heavy negative ions, but no heavy positive ions.
Gunter Stober, Diego Janches, Vivien Matthias, Dave Fritts, John Marino, Tracy Moffat-Griffin, Kathrin Baumgarten, Wonseok Lee, Damian Murphy, Yong Ha Kim, Nicholas Mitchell, and Scott Palo
Ann. Geophys., 39, 1–29, https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-39-1-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-39-1-2021, 2021
Bernd Kaifler, Dimitry Rempel, Philipp Roßi, Christian Büdenbender, Natalie Kaifler, and Volodymyr Baturkin
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 13, 5681–5695, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-5681-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-5681-2020, 2020
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The Balloon Lidar Experiment was the first lidar dedicated to measurements in the mesosphere flown on a balloon. During a 6 d flight, it made high-resolution observations of polar mesospheric clouds which form at high latitudes during summer at ~ 83 km altitude and are the highest clouds in Earth's atmosphere. We describe the instrument and assess its performance. We could detect fainter clouds with higher resolution than what is possible with ground-based instruments.
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Executive editor
Noctilucent clouds form in the extremely cold temperatures in the high-latitude summer mesosphere (altitudes of 75-85km). Their formation requires the right combination of water vapour concentrations and temperatures. It has been speculated for example, that increasing frequency of occurrence of such clouds might result from increases in methane concentrations, with the methane being converted into water vapour in the upper stratosphere and mesosphere. This paper reports observations of noctilucent clouds, made using an automated lidar system in southern Argentina, at unexpectedly low latitudes compared to previous Southern Hemisphere observations. Possible explanations, including systematic moistening of the mesosphere by space traffic, are discussed.
Noctilucent clouds form in the extremely cold temperatures in the high-latitude summer...
Short summary
Noctilucent clouds (NLCs) are silvery clouds that can be viewed during twilight and indicate atmospheric conditions like temperature and water vapor in the upper mesosphere. High-resolution measurements from a remote sensing laser instrument provide NLC height, brightness, and occurrence rate since 2017. Most observations occur in the morning hours, likely caused by strong tidal winds, and NLC ice particles are thus transported from elsewhere to the observing location in the Southern Hemisphere.
Noctilucent clouds (NLCs) are silvery clouds that can be viewed during twilight and indicate...
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