Abstract
[1] Previous studies have established that the diurnal eastward-propagating non-migrating tide of wavenumber 3 (DE3) is produced by latent heat release in deep tropospheric convection and therefore is longitude dependent. Longitudinal variations of F-region ionospheric electron density show a zonal wavenumber 4 pattern, expected for satellite observations of DE3 for a fixed local time with respect to a rotating Earth. Satellite observations of winds show wavenumber 4 reaching 180 km, indicating neutral coupling of the troposphere with the thermosphere. In the present work, WINDII measurements of O(1S) green line emission at 250 km excited by photoelectron impact on atomic oxygen are interpreted as neutral density observations; showing wavenumber 4 to be a common density perturbation, with a fractional amplitude variation of about 10%. This result confirms direct neutral coupling of troposphere and thermosphere but also opens the way to other studies of neutral density variations at 250 km.
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