Wind measurements of MLT region using the Platteville, CO MEDAC 50Â MHz meteor radar

Meteoroids enter the earth's atmosphere constantly, producing a trail of ions due to their interaction with the air molecules. Using radar techniques, these trails are detected and used as tracers of the atmospheric winds by measuring the Doppler shift of the return echo as the trails drift with the wind. We present initial results of the atmospheric wind estimates in the mesosphere/lower thermosphere (MLT) region measured using an improved Meteor Echo Detection and Collection (MEDAC) system. For the data presented in this work, the MEDAC is operated with an all-sky 50 MHz radar system at the Platteville Atmospheric Observatory, located at 40°N, 105°W. A five receiver interferometer is used to detect and estimate the precise location of the trail. Further processing yields mean wind estimations for the height range in between 80 and 110 km. Spectral analysis show strong diurnal and semidiurnal oscillations for the resulting wind estimates.