First ground-based observations of mesopause temperatures above the Eastern-Mediterranean Part I: Multi-day oscillations and tides

In this study we present an analysis of 4-years of OH* rotational temperature data, acquired with the German Aerospace Center (DLR) GRIPS-10 (Ground Based Infrared P-branch Spectrometer) instrument, which was installed in Israel in November 2011. This instrument provided the first long-term ground-based observations of airglow emissions in the Eastern Mediterranean. We show the nocturnal mean temperature analysis, which includes time series as well as spectral analysis of the data. In addition, we obtain (migrating) tidal oscillation estimates from the high resolution (1 min) data, by using harmonic fitting, and we analyze the variability of planetary wave signatures in the residual temperature data, which are retrieved after the removal of the tidal harmonic fits from the data. In this analysis of the residual data we find a dominant quasi-5-7 day planetary wave influence on the mesopause temperatures above the Eastern Mediterranean.