A Comparison of Optically Measured and Radar-Derived Horizontal Neutral Winds
Nighttime thermospheric winds for Sondrestrom, Greenland from 11 nights between 1983 and 1988, have been compared to learn about the O(+)-O collision cross section and the high-latitude atomic oxygen density. The horizontal winds in the magnetic meridian were derived indirectly from incoherent-scatt...
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| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
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1990
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| Online Access: | http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA227690 http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA227690 |
| Summary: | Nighttime thermospheric winds for Sondrestrom, Greenland from 11 nights between 1983 and 1988, have been compared to learn about the O(+)-O collision cross section and the high-latitude atomic oxygen density. The horizontal winds in the magnetic meridian were derived indirectly from incoherent-scatter radar (ISR) measurements on ion velocities antiparallel to the magnetic field and directly from Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) measurements of Doppler shifts of the (6300-A) emission of atomic oxygen. In deriving the radar winds, the O(+)-O collision cross section, was scaled by a factor of f what was varied from 0.5 to 5.1. On the basis of several arguments the altitude of the 6300-A emission was assumed to be 230 km. The best agreement between the ISR and FPI winds was obtained when f was increased substantially, to between 1.7 and 3.4. If the average peak emission altitude were higher, these factors would be larger; if it were lower, they would be somewhat smaller. However, if the average altitude were substantially lower it would have been more difficult to have obtained agreement between the two techniques. (R.H.) |
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