Ground-based observations of noctilucent clouds with a northern hemisphere network of automatic digital cameras

For the first time we present an analysis of observations of noctilucent clouds obtained with a network of automatic digital cameras located at opposite sides of the northern hemisphere. The advantage of this network is that the cameras are located along the same latitude circle producing comparable measurements. We find that there is an indication of the 2-day planetary wave propagation influencing the occurrence frequency, geographical distribution and brightness variations of noctilucent clouds. The 5-day planetary wave has much less effect on noctilucent clouds than that of the 2-day wave, at least for the summers of 2006 and 2007. At the same time, bright noctilucent clouds tend to occur every successive night during short periods of 3–5 nights.     

Noctilucent clouds seen at 60°N: origin and development

A noctilucent cloud is seen at a particular time from a specified place. The journey of the cloud particles from nucleation to observation can be calculated by using a simple model of growth and taking account of the fall speed of the cloud particles. Cloud particles can be backtracked by bringing together growth and fall speed equations and a model of mesospheric winds to find where the particles of a cloud seen at a particular time and place have originated. The wind model that is used here suggests that there is a distinct outer edge to the summertime polar circulation pattern in which water vapour is being carried up from the lower mesosphere to the mesopause. The change in latitude of this outer edge during the summer season may well account for the observed seasonal change in occurrence of mesospheric clouds. Polar mesospheric clouds cause a drying of the upper mesosphere. It is suggested here that diffusion of water vapour dumped at the level of polar mesospheric clouds will take an appreciable time to carry water vapour back up to the mesopause. In consequence, there will be a significant separation between the observed location of a noctilucent cloud and its precursor polar mesospheric cloud.     

Variations in the Polar Mesospheric Summer Echoes during the Appearance of Irregularities of Noctilucent Clouds

Variations in the amplitude of the ordinary wave from a received signal on a partial reflection radar at a short-wave range on the Kola Peninsula during the appearance of noctilucent clouds on August 12, 2016, are examined. Noctilucent clouds are registered by the all-sky camera located 100 km southward of the partial reflection radar. They extended over the entire celestial hemisphere observed by the all-sky camera; all of them moved in the southern direction, and the clouds had a tenuous structure and showed gravity waves with spatial periods of 15–100 km. During the presence of noctilucent clouds over the partial reflection radar, polar mesospheric summer echoes (PMSEs) were recorded at heights of 83–86 km. It was found that the presence of only noctilucent clouds in diagram of the antenna pattern of partial frequency radar is not sufficient for the appearance of PMSEs; noctilucent clouds must also have irregularities of several kilometers. The PMSE heights decreased with a velocity of 0.5 and 1.3 m/s. The issue of aerosols that cause the appearance of PMSEs and noctilucent clouds is discussed.     

Variations in the area of the global field of noctilucent clouds of the northern hemisphere in 2007–2012 seasons

Using daily distributions of noctilucent cloud fields obtained for 2007–2012 by the AIM satellite, we analyzed temporal changes in the area of the global field of mesospheric noctilucent clouds. These clouds have been shown to be characterized by some common features that can be approximated mathematically by simple functions reflecting the seasonal course of the temperature and humidity regime of the high-latitude mesosphere, allowing a clear physical interpretation. We discuss the specific features of changes in the cloud field area for individual seasons.     

Atmospheric anomalies in the summer of 1908: Skyglow

After the Tunguska catastrophe, the region of “white nights” extended southwards as far down as ∼42°N at some locations. Impressive sunsets, colored in all shades of the solar spectrum were observed in the territory of Europe and some parts of Asia from 47 to 60°N. These phenomena can be explained by the reflection of sunlight from the internal (Earth-facing) surface of the noctilucent cloud field ∼10 mln km² in area. The reflective surface of the noctilucent cloud field after the Tunguska catastrophe was estimated to be by a factor of 104 larger than the reflective surface of usual noctilucent clouds.     

Noctilucent cloud in the western Arctic in 2005: Simultaneous lidar and camera observations and analysis

We report observations of a noctilucent cloud (NLC) over central Alaska by a ground-based lidar and camera on the night of 9–10 August 2005. The lidar at Poker Flat Research Range (PFRR), Chatanika (65°N, 147°W) measured a maximum integrated backscatter coefficient of 2.4×10^?6 sr^?1 with a peak backscatter coefficient of 2.6×10^?9 m^?1 sr^?1 corresponding to an aerosol backscatter ratio of 120 at an altitude of 82.1 km. The camera at Donnelly Dome, 168 km southeast of PFRR, recorded an extensive NLC display across the sky with distinct filamentary features corresponding to wave structures measured by the lidar. The occurrence of the maximum integrated backscatter coefficient corresponded to the passage of a bright cloud band to the southwest over PFRR. The camera observations indicate that the cloud band had a horizontal width of 50 km and a length of 150 km. The horizontal scale of the cloud band was confirmed by medium-frequency radar wind measurements that reported mesopause region winds of 30 m/s to the southwest during the period when the cloud band passed over PFRR. Comparison of these measurements with current NLC microphysical models suggests a lower bound on the water vapor mixing ratio at 83 km of 7–9 ppmv and a cloud ice mass of 1.5–1.8×10³ kg. Satellite measurements show that this NLC display occurred during a burst of cloud activity that began on 5 August and lasted for 10 days. This cloud appeared 10 days after a launch of the space shuttle. We discuss the appearance of NLCs in August over several years at this lower polar latitude site in terms of planetary wave activity and space shuttle launches.     

Simulation of FY-2D infrared brightness temperature and sensitivity analysis to the errors of WRF simulated cloud variables

This study simulated FY-2 D satellite infrared brightness images based on the WRF and RTTOV models. The effects of prediction errors in WRF micro-and macroscale cloud variables on FY-2 D infrared brightness temperature accuracy were analyzed. The principle findings were as follows. In the T+0–48 h simulation time, the root mean square errors of the simulated brightness temperatures were within the range 10–27 K, i.e., better than the range of 20–40 K achieved previously. In the T+0–24 h simulation time, the correlation coefficients between the simulated and measured brightness temperatures for all four channels were 0.5. The simulation performance of water channel IR3 was stable and the best. The four types of cloud microphysical scheme considered all showed that the simulated values of brightness temperature in clouds were too high and that the distributions of cloud systems were incomplete, especially in typhoon areas. The performance of the THOM scheme was considered best, followed in descending order by the WSM6, WDM6, and LIN schemes. Compared with observed values, the maximum deviation appeared in the range 253–273 K for all schemes. On the microscale, the snow water mixing ratio of the THOM scheme was much bigger than that of the other schemes. Improving the production efficiency or increasing the availability of solid water in the cloud microphysical scheme would provide slight benefit for brightness temperature simulations. On the macroscale, the cloud amount obtained by the scheme used in this study was small. Improving the diagnostic scheme for cloud amount, especially high-level cloud, could improve the accuracy of brightness temperature simulations. These results could provide an intuitive reference for forecasters and constitute technical support for the creation of simulated brightness temperature images for the FY-4 satellite.     

21st Anniversary of the Bulletin

Abstract

The drought event which reached severe levels in 1972 and 1973 caused a major disaster in the Sahalian and sub-Sahalian zones in Africa. This disaster has drawn attention to the need for data surveys and detailed studies for meaningful long-term measures to combat the effects of future droughts.

The study reported in this paper is an attempt to assess the hydrological aspects of the drought event in Nigeria in 1972 and 1973. There exist relatively long and reliable records of rainfall within the drought zone, while records for runoff, water level and groundwater are few and far between. Data available are analysed to determine evidence of trend and persistence (short and long-term). An examination of the rainfall records showed that extreme dry years at all the stations tended to recur at about the same time. The time interval between these extreme dry years was about 30 years. It was also observed from the spectral analysis of the records that most of the spectra for all the stations showed a generally high level of variance at low frequency.

The limited information on runoff and groundwater precludes a detailed statistical analysis from being carried out on the annual series of runoff. However, the runoff data at some stations snowed that the magnitude of runoff in the drought year 1972/1973 was about 22–72 per cent of the average value for the length of record available (about eight years). Moreover, the long-term water-level record of Lake Chad revealed a similar trend for the occurrence of extreme dry years to that observed in the rainfall record.     

AIRS观测的东亚夏季平流层重力波特征

对流性重力波对中层大气环境有显著影响.重力波活动及重力波源的地理和季节性变化等信息是理解和模拟重力波效应的基础.卫星高光谱红外大气垂直探测器AIRS的4μm和15μm波段可用于识别30~40km高度范围和41km高度附近的重力波,其11μm通道可同步观测对流层深对流.观测个例表明,海面和陆面上空的平流层扰动影响范围均可达1000km,不同高度的扰动强度分布也存在差异.基于2007年6月至8月的AIRS观测资料,分析了东亚区域的对流层深对流活动和平流层的重力波,得到了深对流和重力波发生频率的水平分布.统计结果表明,东亚区域夏季夜间的深对流活动明显少于白天,但AIRS观测到的平流层重力波发生频率和扰动强度均显著大于白天,揭示了夜间对流层深对流诱发的平流层重力波在强度、范围等方面可能与白天存在显著差异.进一步对比分析表明,AIRS观测的平流层扰动高值区与深对流高值区明显不同.平流层重力波与对流层深对流之间的相关分析表明,在36°N以南的区域,41km高度上AIRS观测的重力波中,深对流云诱发的重力波的比例约为30%~100%.在10°N至36°N区间,90%的深对流均可诱发平流层重力波.分析得到的30~40km高度区间和41km高度附近的重力波水平分布对比表明,后一高度上的扰动强度明显大于前一高度,且前一高度在东南亚区域存在强扰动中心而在后一高度则没有.最后,给出了AIRS观测的几种典型形态的东亚区域平流层波动,表明了该区域平流层环境波动形态的复杂性和多样性.     

The human impact on the Pc1 wave activity

This paper deals with the problem of human impact on the electromagnetic environment of the Earth. We have focused our attention on the Pc1 electromagnetic waves (the frequency range is 0.2–5 Hz), which are spontaneously excited due to the instability of magnetospheric plasma. This paper describes the analysis of the long-term ground-based Pc1 observations to search for the so-called weekend effect, or, more generally, a specific weekly cycle in the Pc1 wave activity. It is supposed that such effects are evident of human origin. The data on the Pc1 occurrence at Borok (Φ=54.05°, Λ=119.44°, L=2.9) in 1958–1992 are examined. The synchronous detection method in the form of superposition epoch analysis has been used. It was found statistically that there is an inherent difference of about 10% in the numbers of Pc1 wave trains between weekdays and weekends. The main conclusion is that the weekly cycle in the Pc1 wave activity is a real geophysical phenomenon.     

Responses of polar mesospheric cloud brightness to stratospheric gravity waves at the South Pole and Rothera,Antarctica

We present the first observational proof that polar mesospheric cloud (PMC) brightness responds to stratospheric gravity waves (GWs) differently at different latitudes by analyzing the Fe Boltzmann lidar data collected from the South Pole and Rothera (67.5°S, 68.0°W), Antarctica. Stratospheric GW strength is characterized by the root-mean-square (RMS) relative density perturbation in the 30–45 km region and PMC brightness is represented by the total backscatter coefficient (TBC) in austral summer from November to February. The linear correlation coefficient (LCC) between GW strength and PMC brightness is found to be +0.09 with a 42% confidence level at the South Pole and ?0.49 with a 98% confidence level at Rothera. If a PMC case potentially affected by a space shuttle exhaust plume is removed from the Rothera dataset, the negative correlation coefficient and confidence level increase to ?0.61 and 99%, respectively. The Rothera negative correlation increases when shorter-period waves are included while no change is observed in the South Pole correlation. Therefore, observations show statistically that Rothera PMC brightness is negatively correlated with the stratospheric GW strength but no significant correlation exists at the South Pole. A positive correlation of +0.74 with a confidence level of 99.98% is found within a distinct subset of the South Pole data but the rest of the dataset exhibits a random distribution, possibly indicating different populations of ice particles at the South Pole. Our data show that these two locations have similar GW strength and spectrum in the 30–45 km region during summer. The different responses of PMC brightness to GW perturbations are likely caused by the latitudinal differences in background temperatures in the ice crystal growth region between the PMC altitude and the mesopause. At Rothera, where temperatures in this region are relatively warm and supersaturations are not as large, GW-induced temperature perturbations can drive subsaturation in the warm phase. Thus, GWs can destroy growing ice crystals or limit their growth, leading to negative correlation at Rothera. Because the South Pole temperatures in the mesopause region are much colder, GW-perturbed temperature may never be above the frost point and have less of an impact on crystal growth and PMC brightness. The observed phenomena and proposed mechanisms above need to be understood and verified through future modeling of GW effects on PMC microphysics and ray modeling of GW propagation over the South Pole and Rothera.     

The diurnal variation of polar mesospheric cloud frequency near 55°N observed by SHIMMER

We present the first measurement of polar mesospheric cloud (PMC) occurrence frequency over the diurnal cycle from a satellite. The observations are made during the 2007 northern hemisphere PMC season by the Spatial Heterodyne IMager for MEsospheric Radicals (SHIMMER), which views the limb near 309 nm typically between 34 and 98 km. The PMC diurnal variation is derived between 50 and 58°N, where local times at the tangent point precess by ～30 min/day allowing for observations between 0330 and 2130 local time during the PMC season. We find that the occurrence frequencies exhibit a strong semidiurnal behavior with peaks near 0600 and 1800 local time and a minimum between 0900 and 1600 during which they are on average an order of magnitude less. The semidiurnal dependence is strongly correlated with concurrent ground-based measurements of meridional winds and temperatures measured at the same latitude. Our results for PMC frequency over the diurnal cycle can be used to help reconcile observations from other satellites that only permit cloud measurements at discrete local times.     

Indications for a long-term temperature change in the polar summer middle atmosphere

Middle atmosphere temperatures have been measured by in situ and by remote sensing instruments for several decades. Extensive temperature measurements by rocket-borne falling spheres (FS) were performed from Andøya Rocket Range in northern Norway from the late 1980s onwards. About 90 rockets were successfully launched within eight measurement campaigns and compiled to an empirical temperature statistic. About half of these measurements were in July and August. Since 1997 the Bonn University Rayleigh/Mie/Raman lidar has been operated at Esrange in northern Sweden during winter as well as during summer. One hundred and eight night mean temperature profiles were obtained for July and August from this data set and have been compared to the FS-statistics. A systematic difference could be observed, i.e. the weekly average temperatures taken from the FS-based empirical temperature statistics are up to 10 K warmer than the temperatures measured by lidar, depending on altitude. In particular comparisons during August show larger differences than comparisons with July data. Temperatures were additionally derived from the Rayleigh-scattered light of the Bonn University Na-resonance lidar which was operated during the 1980s at Andøya. No systematic differences between these measurements and the FS-data were found. Gravity waves, tides, volcanic aerosol, and the solar cycle are not likely to cause the observed differences, since their influence is minimised either by data selection (gravity waves and tides) or by measurement times (volcanic aerosol, solar cycle). Additionally to the temperature difference a change in the gravity wave activity was observed, in particular during summer 2002 and 2006. During these years also noctilucent clouds occurred rather late in the season. The latest unambiguous observation of a noctilucent cloud by the U. Bonn lidar at Esrange was on 24 August 2006. All these observations are indications of a long-term temperature change in the polar summer middle atmosphere as predicted by model calculations. While similar changes have already been observed at middle and low latitudes, temperature trend analyses for the polar atmosphere did not reveal any variation up to now.     

基于COSMIC掩星探测资料的云底高反演研究

本文基于相对湿度廓线进入云层时的突变实现云底高反演的思想,采用2008年11月至2009年1月的COSMIC掩星湿空气数据反演全球云底高度,并与探空资料反演结果进行对比分析,得出以下重要结论:(1)当温度－40 ℃相似文献   

Hydroxyl temperature and intensity measurements during noctilucent cloud displays

Two Fourier transform spectrometers have been used to investigate the properties of the near-infrared hydroxyl (OH) nightglow emission under high-latitude summertime conditions and any association with noctilucent clouds (NLCs). The measurements were made from Poker Flat Research Range, Alaska (65.1°N, 147.5°W), during August 1986. Simultaneous photographic observations of the northern twilight sky were made from Gulkana, Alaska (62.2°N, 145.5°W), approximately 340 km to the south to establish the presence of NLCs over the spectrometer site. Data exhibiting significant short-term variations in the relative intensity (as much as 50-100%) and rotational temperature (typically 5–15 K) were recorded on six occasions when NLCs were observed. Joint measurements were also obtained on several “cloud-free” nights. No obvious relationship was found linking the mean OH intensity or its variation with the occurrence of NLCs. However, a clear tendency was found for the mean OH temperature to be lower on NLC nights than on cloud-free nights. In particular, a significant fraction of the OH(3-1) band spectra recorded by each instrument (16-57%) exhibited temperatures below \sim154 K on NLC nights compared with <3% on cloud-free nights. This result is qualitatively consistent with current models for ice particle nucleation and growth, but the mean OH temperature on NLC nights (\sim156 K) was significantly higher than would be expected for long-term particle growth in this region. These observations raise questions concerning the expected proximity of the high-latitude, summertime OH layer and the NLC growth region.     

Global nature of the seismogravitational oscillations of the Earth

Direct experimental evidence for the global nature of the seismogravitational vibrations of the Earth within the range of 0.03–0.1 mHz is obtained on the basis of the analysis of synchronous observations with the help of vertical seismographs in Eurasia and North Africa. A number of stable, statistically significant vibrations are discovered. Analysis of 66 observations at ten stations showed that stable global vibrations exist in five frequency bands (45–51, 54–58, 61–65, 67–69, and 81–83 μHz).     

SAR arc occurrence frequency during cycle 23 of solar activity

The occurrence frequency of SAR arcs during 1997–2006 has been analyzed based on the photometric observations at the Yakutsk meridian (Maimaga station, corrected geomagnetic coordinates: 57° N, 200° E). SAR arcs appeared in 114 cases (～500 h) during ～370 nights of observations (～3170 h). The occurrence frequency of SAR arcs increases to 27% during the growth phase of solar activity and has a clearly defined maximum ～36% at a decline of cycle 23. The SAR arc registration frequency corresponds to the variations in geomagnetic activity in this solar cycle. The dates, UT, and geomagnetic latitudes of photometric observations are presented for 1997–2006.     

利用风云三号微波成像仪资料遥感“桑达”台风降雨云结构

本文利用搭载于我国风云三号B星上的微波成像仪(MWRI)观测亮温数据,结合戈达德廓线反演算法,对1102号"桑达"台风地面雨强和降雨云结构进行反演试验.利用AMSR-E业务降水产品对地面雨强反演结果进行了检验,结果表明,MWRI和AMSR-E反演的地面雨强在空间分布上非常吻合,相关性达76%,均方根误差约2.8 mm/h,二者的观测亮温及地面雨强反演结果具有较好的一致性.提取洋面台风雨区的平均水凝物廓线,其垂直结构显示,雨水和可降冰含量丰富,随高度变化明显,且具有明显峰值高度,云水和云冰含量则较少,且随高度变化不明显;当降水增强时,雨水和可降冰各层含量稳定增加,且峰值高度基本保持不变,云水和云冰含量则增幅不稳,且峰值高度有所改变.地面雨强随距台风中心距离的变化阐释了台风的螺旋结构及降水特点,距台风中心距离0.3°和0.6°附近分别出现了地面雨强峰值和次峰值,且66%的降水集中在距台风中心距离1°的空间范围内.MWRI提供的台风地面雨强和降雨云垂直信息具有较高的可信度,对于我们监测台风降水、分析台风降水结构的时空演变特征以及数值预报模式应用等具有重要的参考价值.