A collaborative study on temperature diurnal tide in the midlatitude mesopause region (41°N, 105°W) with Na lidar and TIMED/SABER observations

The na lidar-observed temperature diurnal tidal perturbations, based on full-diurnal-cycle observations from 2002 to 2008, are compared with tidal wave measurements by the TIMED/SABER instrument to elucidate the nature of diurnal tidal-period perturbations observed locally. The diurnal amplitude and phase profiles deduced by the two instruments are in very good agreement most of the year. However, the lidar-observed diurnal amplitudes during winter months and early spring are considerably larger than SABER observations, leading to the existence of a significant amplitude maximum of 12 K near 90 km in February and a different seasonal structure of temperature diurnal amplitude from the two instruments. The lidar-observed diurnal phase shows propagating wave characteristics during equinoctial months, but exhibit “evanescent wave” behavior in winter months, whereas SABER diurnal tidal phase exhibits propagating diurnal tidal character all year long with small seasonal variation. This anomalous tidal characteristic from the lidar observations repeats almost every winter. The exact mechanism behind this tidal feature is not fully understood, therefore further investigation and more experimental observations are necessary.