Abstract
[1] We report the first lidar observations of polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs) and temperatures made with an Fe Boltzmann lidar at McMurdo, Antarctica in summer 2010–2011. Eighty-five hours of PMCs were observed between 21 Dec 2010 and 15 Feb 2011, giving an overall occurrence frequency of 29.9%. The mean PMC centroid altitude is 84.59 ± 0.17 km, confirming previous reports that clouds in the Southern Hemisphere are ∼1 km higher than in the North. By combining the McMurdo (77.8°S) observations with those obtained at the South Pole (90°S) and Rothera (67.5°S), we find that the mean PMC altitude increases with increasing latitude with a statistically significant ascending rate of 40 ± 3 m/deg. A negative correlation is found between the daily-mean temperatures at 90 km and PMC brightness. The observations provide direct evidence that the cold phase of wave-induced temperature oscillations facilitates PMC formation and Fe depletion, supporting previous modeling results.
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