Abstract
Abstract. Temperature soundings are performed by lidar at the mid-latitude station of Kühlungsborn (Germany, 54° N, 12° E). The profiles cover the complete range from the lower troposphere (~1 km) to the lower thermosphere (~105 km) by simultaneous and co-located operation of a Rayleigh-Mie-Raman lidar and a potassium resonance lidar. Observations have been done during 266 nights between June 2002 and July 2007, each of 3–15 h length. This large and unique data set provides comprehensive information on the altitudinal and seasonal variation of temperatures from the troposphere to the lower thermosphere. The remaining day-to-day-variability is strongly reduced by harmonic fits at constant altitude levels and a representative data set is achieved. This data set reveals a two-level mesopause structure with an altitude of about 86–87 km (~144 K) in summer and ~102 km (~170 K) during the rest of the year. The average stratopause altitude is ~48 km throughout the whole year, with temperatures varying between 258 and 276 K. From the fit parameters amplitudes and phases of annual, semi-annual, and quarter-annual variations are derived. The amplitude of the annual component is largest with amplitudes of up to 30 K in 85 km, while the quarter-annual variation is smallest and less than 3 K at all altitudes. The lidar data set is compared with ECMWF temperatures below about 70 km altitude and reference data from the NRLMSISE-00 model above. Apart from the temperature soundings the aerosol backscatter ratio is measured between 20 and 35 km. The seasonal variation of these values is presented here for the first time.
Highlights
Temperature is one of the most fundamental and important quantities to describe the Earth’s atmosphere
We have shown recently by comparison with Noctilucent Clouds around 83 km that our temperature profiles are free from significant systematic errors at least in the upper mesosphere and mesopause region (Gerding et al, 2007b)
We have described the temperature structure of the Earth’s atmosphere at 54◦ N and its seasonal variation in the whole altitude range between 1 and 105 km
Summary
Temperature is one of the most fundamental and important quantities to describe the Earth’s atmosphere. State-of-the-art GCMs often cover the whole range from the troposphere to the (lower) thermosphere, reflecting the importance of vertical coupling for the description of the atmospheric state In contrast to this many observational techniques can only be used in a limited altitude range. In this paper we describe the temperature structure at Kuhlungsborn (Germany, 54◦ N, 12◦ E) That this is a mid-latitude site, it is still influenced by polar phenomena like Noctilucent Clouds (NLC) (cf Gerding et al, 2007b) or Sudden Stratospheric Warmings (SSW). A harmonic fit of the temperature variation is calculated for each single altitude bin By this the natural variability is blanked and a more representative data set is obtained In the last section we discuss our results and compare with other ground-based and space-based observations
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