Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
ACP
Articles | Volume 18, issue 9
Articles | Volume 18, issue 9
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-6691-2018
© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-6691-2018
© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Articles | Volume 18, issue 9
Research article
 | 
14 May 2018
Research article |  | 14 May 2018

The airglow layer emission altitude cannot be determined unambiguously from temperature comparison with lidars

Tim Dunker

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Cited articles

Baker, D. J. and Stair Jr., A. T.: Rocket measurements of the altitude distributions of the hydroxyl airglow, Phys. Scr., 37, 611–622, https://doi.org/10.1088/0031-8949/37/4/021, 1988. a, b, c, d
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Dunker, T.: Sodium lidar data for “The airglow emission layer altitude cannot be determined unambiguously from temperature comparison with lidars”, DataverseNO, https://doi.org/10.18710/VD25CY, 2018. a
Espy, P. J. and Stegman, J.: Trends and variability of mesospheric temperature at high–latitudes, Phys. Chem. Earth, 27, 543–553, https://doi.org/10.1016/S1474-7065(02)00036-0, 2002. a
French, W. J. R. and Mulligan, F. J.: Stability of temperatures from TIMED/SABER v1.07 (2002–2009) and Aura/MLS v2.2 (2004–2009) compared with OH(6–2) temperatures observed at Davis Station, Antarctica, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 10, 11439–11446, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-10-11439-2010, 2010. a, b
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Often, the emission height of the mesospheric hydroxyl layer has been inferred from a comparison of temperature measured by ground-based lidars and hydroxyl spectrometers. I use temperatures measured by two independent instruments to show that such comparisons usually lead to ambiguous height determinations, especially if a variable layer width is taken into account. Even though this dataset is from a single location, the results apply to all airglow layers at any location.
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