On the fast movements of the thermosphere: an interpretation

We examine the oscillations of the meridional neutral wind in the F region as seen by the EISCAT radar. We propose an interpretation in term of eddies ( tourbillons ) of typical size of a few tens to a few hundreds of kilometers. The observed rotation velocity is a few hundreds of meters per second....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annales Geophysicae
Main Authors: J. Lilensten, P. O. Amblard
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Copernicus Publications 2000
Subjects:
Q
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1007/s00585-001-1651-8
https://doaj.org/article/c29b36814f8049dc9a310c31e16d0e78
Description
Summary:We examine the oscillations of the meridional neutral wind in the F region as seen by the EISCAT radar. We propose an interpretation in term of eddies ( tourbillons ) of typical size of a few tens to a few hundreds of kilometers. The observed rotation velocity is a few hundreds of meters per second. We suggest that the tourbillons are a common feature of thermospheric movements. We propose an optical experiment to check the validity of this assumption. Key words: Atmospheric composition and structure (thermosphere · composition and chemistry) · Ionosphere (ionosphere · atmosphere interactions)