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3, PAGES416-419,MARCH 1991
TemperatureTrendsin LowerMesosphere
A. C. Aikin , M. L. Chanin
2,J. Nash
a, & D. J. Kendig
4
La,bora.tory
for Atmospheres,NASA GoddardSpace
Flight Center, Greenbelt,Maryland 20771,USA
2Serviced'Aeronomie, errieresle Buisson,France
SU.K. MeteorologicalOce, Braeknell,U.K.
240
4ST Systexns
Corpora.tion (STX), Lanhaxn
23O
Ma.ryland 20706, USA
Fig. 1. Lidaremperaure
daa(solidline)andSSU
47X
daaat 44N(d,tted-dashed
lineareplotted
asmonthly:
Copyright 1991 by the American Geophysical Union. memos.
SMEtemperature
daazonallyaveraged
a
(dotted
line)isittcluded
forcomparison
komJanuary
Paper number 91GL00233 toAugust
1986.LidarandSMEdataareplotted
for55
0094-8534 / 91 / 9!GL- 002 33503. O0 while he SSU 47X data is plotted at 0.4 rob.
416
Aikinet al.:Temperature
Trends
in theLower
Mesosphere 417
270
K between 1979 and 1989. This leads to a long-term
geopot,
cntiM height decreaseof constantpressureheight
of about 100 m in the vicinity of 50 kin. If this holds
over France, the long-term trend in the SSU 47X mea-
260
surements shouldbe lessnegativethan the lidar measure-
meat trend by about 0.2 K in 10 years, which is within 250
the uncertainty of the results to the fit.
240
Method of Analysis
230
To qta,ntitntivelyanalyze the temperature for annual
a,nd seufia.mmaloscilla,tions to establish a possiblelin-
270
ear trend, the data were fit with a timelion containing
both sinusoidal and lineax terms. A coefficient to fit the
1!-,yea.rsolar cycleoscillationwas not included. Based
on lidar information, texnperaturechangesdue to solar
flux variationsare small at 515km (Chanin,1[}89). The
fitting procedtreemployedthe CURVFIT algorithmde- E250
scribedby Berington (1909). This algoritlunperforms
a, least-squarestlt to an analytical timelion, which can 240
include terms that are nonlinear in the fit parameters.
The functional form of the fit for the temperature, T, is lb
230 ...... ....... ...... ..... ....
1980 1982 1984 . 1986 1988 1990
rude.Aualysis
of46-55km rocketdata.for theequatorial Chanin,M.L.,Variabilityof the atmospheric
structure
regi{,n
showeda sirfila.r
decrease
of 2.4 K for the period witIxsolarflux {invitedpaper),Proceedings
of the
1973-1985(Augell,1987). Sth LiegeC.olloquium:Our ChangingAtmosphere,
pp. 275--285, 1989
Conclusion
Cha.nin,M.L., sad A. Hauchecorne,
Lidar studies{ftem-
The temperaturedecreasepredicted in the 55 km re-
pcra.ture
anddensityusingrayleighscattering,MAP
Handbook,13, 87--99,1984.
gion
dueto thegreenhouse
effectis 1.5to 2 K perdecade
(WMO,OS0)(Rivdeta!., 1990).Datapresented here Cha.nin,M.L., and A. Hauclteconte,
Long-termvaria-
s!lowanevensteeperdecrease confluxtingthat the neso- tion of tile texnperature
of the ariddieatmosphere
sphere is coolingas predicted.The lowermesosplmre is at nid.!atitude:Dynamicalandradiativecauses,.L
idealfor observinglong-term temperature trendsin the Oeophys.Res.,92, 10933-10941,1987.
atiddlea,[mosphere. While the stra.
t.osphereand upper Cla.ncy,
R.T., andD.W. Rusch,Climatology andtrends
mesosphere both exhibit a strong solar cycle behavior of mesospheric
(58-90kin) temperatures
basedupon
req,iringseveralcyclesof co,ttixtuousobservationbefore 1982- 1986SME limb scatteringprofiles,J. Geo-
a.trendcanbe estal!ished, the 50 to 60 k,n regionhas phys.Res.,94, 3377-3393, 1989.
a smallersolar dependencebased on correlation studies Gille, S.T., A. Hauchecorne,
a.ndM.L. Chanin,Sexnidi-
between
solarflux andlidar temperaturedata (Chanin urnal and diurnal tidal effects in the middle atmo-
et a/.,1989).The negativetrendsobservedin both the sphereas seenby Rayleighlidar, Submittedto J.
ground-based lidar and the satelli.
te-borneSSU47X data Geophys.lies., 1990
setsare the nost significant aspect of the results. Ten
Hauchecorne, A., M.L. Chanin,a.ndP. KecklmtClima-
years of data is still somewhat spa.rse in deterxnining tology and trends of the middle atmospherictem-
trendswhen consideringfactors such as differencesin
pers.tare(33-87 kin) asseenby Rayleighlidar above
solarradiationaccompanyingsolar cycleswith different tile sout.hof Frtce, Submit.
ted to J. Geophys.Res.,
,