On Rayleigh lidar capability enhancement for the measurement of short-period waves at upper mesospheric altitudes

摘要

We used a combination of simultaneous measurements made with Rayleigh lidar and O_2 airglow monitoring to improve lidar investigation capability to cover a higher altitude range. We fed in instantaneous O_2 airglow temperatures rather than model values at the peak altitude for a subsequent integration method of temperature retrieval using Rayleigh lidar backscattered signals. Using this method, errors in the lidar temperature estimates converge at higher altitudes indicating better altitude coverage compared with regular methods where model temperatures are used rather than real-time measurements. This improvement enables the measurement of short-term waves at upper mesospheric altitudes (～90 km). Using two case studies, we show that above 60 km the amplitude of a few short-term waves drastically increases while some of the short-term waves show either damping or saturation. We claim that by using such combined measurements, significant and cost-effective progress can be made in the understanding of short-term wave processes that are important for coupling across different atmospheric regions.