A method for estimating the height of a mesospheric density level using meteor radar

摘要

A new technique for determining the height of a constant density surface at altitudes of 78–85 km is presented. The first results are derived from a decade of observations by a meteor radar located at Davis Station in Antarctica and are compared with observations from the Microwave Limb Sounder instrument aboard the Aura satellite. The density of the neutral atmosphere in the mesosphere/lower thermosphere region around 70–110 km is an essential parameter for interpreting airglow-derived atmospheric temperatures, planning atmospheric entry maneuvers of returning spacecraft, and understanding the response of climate to different stimuli. This region is not well characterized, however, due to inaccessibility combined with a lack of consistent strong atmospheric radar scattering mechanisms. Recent advances in the analysis of detection records from high-performance meteor radars provide new opportunities to obtain atmospheric density estimates at high time resolutions in the MLT region using the durations and heights of faint radar echoes from meteor trails. Previous studies have indicated that the expected increase in underdense meteor radar echo decay times with decreasing altitude is reversed in the lower part of the meteor ablation region due to the neutralization of meteor plasma. The height at which the gradient of meteor echo decay times reverses is found to occur at a fixed atmospheric density. Thus, the gradient reversal height of meteor radar diffusion coefficient profiles can be used to infer the height of a constant density level, enabling the observation of mesospheric density variations using meteor radar.