Multiyear variations of time-correlated mesoscale OH temperature perturbations near the mesopause at Maymaga, Tory and Zvenigorod

Abstract

Ground-based observations of the natural hydroxyl (OH) nightglow at altitudes of 85–90 km are used for deriving the rotational temperature of excited OH, which is close to the neutral atmospheric temperature. For filtering of mesoscale perturbations, we use differences between pairs of measured values of OH rotational temperature separated with fixed time intervals in the range of 0.5–2 h. The filtering is applied for studying mesoscale variations of temperature near the mesopause according to the data of spectral OH nightglow measurements at observatories of Zvenigorod (56°N, 37°E.) in the years 2004–2016, Tory (52°N, 103°E) in 2012–2017 and Maymaga (63°N, 130°E) in 2000–2015. Monthly-mean values and variances of temperature disturbances with periods 0.7–8.2 h are determined. Semiempirical and statistical approaches are used to estimate and subtract variances of the instrumental dark current noise and uncorrelated in time fluctuations. Seasonal and interannual variations in standard deviations of correlated in time mesoscale perturbations of the OH rotational temperature at the considered observational sites are studied. They can give information about multiyear changes in the activity of atmospheric acoustic-gravity waves propagating through the OH layer near the mesopause.