MIPAS observations of longitudinal oscillations in the mesosphere and the lower thermosphere: climatology of odd-parity daily frequency modes

Abstract

Abstract. MIPAS global Sun-synchronous observations are almost fixed in local time. Subtraction of the descending and ascending node measurements at each longitude only includes the longitudinal oscillations with odd daily frequencies nodd from the Sun's perspective at 10:00. Contributions from the background atmosphere, daily-invariant zonal oscillations and tidal modes with even-parity daily frequencies vanish. We have determined longitudinal oscillations in MIPAS temperature with nodd and wavenumber k = 0–4 from the stratosphere to 150 km from April 2007 to March 2012. To our knowledge, this is the first time zonal oscillations in temperature have been derived pole to pole in this altitude range from a single instrument. The major findings are the detection of (1) migrating tides at northern and southern high latitudes; (2) significant k = 1 activity at extratropical and high latitudes, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere; (3) k = 3 and k = 4 eastward-propagating waves that penetrate the lower thermosphere with a significantly larger vertical wavelength than in the mesosphere; and (4) a migrating tide quasi-biennial oscillation in the stratosphere, mesosphere and lower thermosphere. MIPAS global measurements of longitudinal oscillations are useful for testing tide modeling in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere region and as a lower boundary for models extending higher up in the atmosphere.