Tuesday, 13 January 2004: 1:45 PM
Space weather in the Earth's mesopause region
Room 617
The mesopause region (ca. 80-110 km) is a cold and
curious place in the Earth's atmosphere. Temperatures
therein are colder in summer and warmer in winter
because gravity waves that propagate into the region
from the lower atmosphere dissipate, depositing their
energy and momentum and driving a residual circulation
from the summer to winter hemispheres with upwelling
and downwelling over the respective poles. Large and
ubiquitous solar atmospheric tidal variations
characterize the large-scale dynamics near the
mesopause. These global waves also originate in the
lower atmosphere and grow exponentially as they
propagate upward. Solar geomagnetic disturbances can
penetrate downward into the mesopause region and
affect the quiescent dynamics and chemistry. This
tutorial presentation will overview the space weather
effects in the mesopause region and identify some of
the challenges associated with quantifying these effects
in both ground-based and satellite-borne observations.
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