The effect of a rotation of the atmosphere on the calculated diurnal variation of upper-air density and temperature

Abstract

The diurnal variation of the temperature and density in a simple mono-constituent atmosphere undergoing daily photo-heating by the Sun and cooling by conduction is investigated theoretically in the way described by Harris and Priester (1) except that a rotation of the atmosphere (recently suggested by King-Hele (2)) has been taken into account. Two types of rotation are considered, one independent of and the other dependent on local time. It is shown that neither type would change the phase of the density variation in such a way as to bring the Harris and Priester theory into agreement with observations. There is still a discrepancy in that the maximum temperature and density is calculated to be at 17 hours local time but is observed to be at 14 hours local time.