Mesospheric winds measured by medium-frequency radar with full correlation analysis: error properties and impacts on studies of wind variance

Gibbins, Maude; Kavanagh, Andrew J.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/gi-9-223-2020

Articles | Volume 9, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/gi-9-223-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/gi-9-223-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 9, issue 1

Research article

|

28 May 2020

Research article |

| 28 May 2020

Mesospheric winds measured by medium-frequency radar with full correlation analysis: error properties and impacts on studies of wind variance

Maude Gibbins and Andrew J. Kavanagh

Data sets

Medium Frequency Radar Data 2002–2019 Rothera, Antarctica M. J. Jarvis, D. C. Fritts, R. E. Hibbins, A. J. Kavanagh, and N. Cobbett http://psddb.nerc-bas.ac.uk/data/access/coverage.php?menu=4&bc=1,2&source=1&class=78&type=MF Radar&site=Rothera

Medium Frequency Radar Data from Halley: 2012–2017, Antarctica A. J. Kavanagh, N. Cobbett, and M. J. Jarvis http://psddb.nerc-bas.ac.uk/data/access/coverage.php?menu=4&bc=1,2&source=1&class=78&type=MF Radar&site=Halley

Geomagnetic AE index M. Nose, T. Iyemori, M. Sugiura, and T. Kamei https://doi.org/10.17593/15031-54800

Short summary

Medium-frequency radars measure winds (between 55 and 100 km altitude). As part of their final year undergraduate project, the lead author used two radars in Antarctica to look at how the wind speed varied with the aim of identifying when the wind was too fast to be a real measurement. Instead, we discovered that the variance depends strongly on factors in the analysis technique rather than on natural features such as gravity waves, and that the Sun and geomagnetic activity play a role.