Summer Mesosphere Temperature Distribution from Wide-Angle Polarization Measurements of the Twilight Sky

摘要

The paper contains the results of wide-angle polarization camera (WAPC)measurements of the twilight sky background conducted in summer 2011 and 2012at 55.2 degs.N, 37.5 degs.E, southwards from Moscow. The method of singlescattering separation based on polarization data is suggested. The obtainedcomponents of scattering matrixes show the domination of Rayleigh scattering inthe mesosphere for all observation days. It made possible to retrieve thealtitude distribution of temperature in the mesosphere. The results arecompared with the temperature data by TIMED/SABER and EOS Aura/MLS instrumentsfor nearby dates and locations.