Coqui 2: Mesospheric and lower thermospheric wind observations over Puerto Rico

Abstract

During the 1998 Coqui 2 sounding rocket campaign, three chemical release rockets were launched from Puerto Rico to measure the wind profiles in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere region. The first release took place on February 19, and the next two releases were five days later and four hours apart. All three measurements show large winds and wind shears in the altitude range between 95 and 110 km. The largest wind speeds occurred near 100 km with horizontal flow velocities close to 150 m s−1. Taken in isolation, such features may appear to be unusual, but in fact, a large number of earlier rocket measurements show wind features similar to those observed in the Coqui 2 campaign. Such large winds are therefore not an isolated but rather a common feature of the wind profiles at midlatitudes in an altitude range that is critical for the electrodynamics of the ionosphere. The wind profile characteristics described here are not generally well known since the earlier more extensive chemical release data sets were only published in reports with a rather limited distribution.