Airglow-imager based observation of possible influences of subtropical mesospheric gravity waves on F-region ionosphere over Jammu & Kashmir, India

• Published in: Scientific Reports
• Main Authors: Ramkumar, T. K., Malik, Manzoor Ahmad, Ganaie, Bilal Ahmad, Bhat, Aashiq Hussain
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Springer Science and Business Media LLC 2021
• Subjects: Multidisciplinary; Indian; sami
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-89694-3; http://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-89694-3.pdf; http://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-89694-3

Abstract As a joint research collaboration between the National Atmospheric Research Laboratory (NARL), and the University of Kashmir (KU), NARL installed an all-sky airglow CCD imager (with centre wavelengths of 630 nm, 557.7 nm [2 nm band widths] and 840 nm [150 nm wide band with blocking notch at 866 nm to avoid the contamination of molecular oxygen emissions]) in the University campus in Srinagar (75°E, 34°N, geographic), Jammu and Kashmir, India (western Himalayan region). To understand the upper atmospheric dynamics and ionospheric electrodynamics and their associated physical coupling mechanisms, the imager observes airglow emissions of OH molecules (~ 85 km height; 840 nm) and atomic oxygen occurring at the heights of ~ 97 km (557.7 nm) and ~ 250 km (630 nm). Airglow observations in Kashmir commenced in the night of August 11, 2017 and the present work reports on the characteristics of first-time observation of Medium Scale Travelling Ionospheric Disturbances (MSTIDs with horizontal wavelengths of ~ 100–300 km) over Kashmir region during 20:30—22:30 IST (Indian standard time) on August 15, 2017 (India independence day). Initially, the phase front of MSTIDs was aligned along the north-west and south-east direction and moved at ~ 57 m/s towards the south-west direction and finally the westward direction by aligning along the meridian before they disappeared. Along with SAMI-3 ionospheric model simulations, simultaneous multiwavelength airglow observations indicate that secondary gravity waves generated due to dissipation of upward propagating mesospheric gravity waves in the heights of ~ 85–95 km would have contributed to the generation of MSTIDs in the F region ionospheric plasma through electrodynamical coupling between the E and F region (Perkins instability) ionosphere.