We report the first lidar observations of neutral Fe layers with gravity wave signatures in the thermosphere from 110–155 km at McMurdo, Antarctica in May 2011. The thermospheric Fe densities are low, ranging from ∼200 cm−3 at 120 km to ∼20 cm−3 at 150 km. The measured temperatures from 115–135 km are considerably warmer than MSIS and appear to be related to Joule heating enhanced by aurora. The observed waves originate in the lower atmosphere and show periods of 1.5–2 h through 77–155 km. The vertical wavelength increases from ∼13 km at 115 km to ∼70 km at 150 km altitude. These wave characteristics are strikingly similar to the traveling ionospheric disturbances caused by internal gravity waves. The thermospheric Fe layers are likely formed through the neutralization of vertically converged Fe+ layers that descend in height following the gravity wave downward phase progression.

Persistent, dominant, and large‐amplitude gravity waves with 3–10 h periods and vertical wavelengths ~20–30 km are observed in temperatures from the stratosphere to lower thermosphere with an Fe Boltzmann lidar at McMurdo, Antarctica. These waves exhibit characteristics of inertia‐gravity waves in case studies, yet they are extremely persistent and have been present during every lidar observation. We characterize these 3–10 h waves in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere using lidar temperature data in June from 2011 to 2015. A new method is applied to identify the major wave events from every lidar run longer than 12 h. A continuous 65 h lidar run on 28–30 June 2014 exhibits a 7.5 h wave spanning ~60 h, and 6.5 h and 3.4 h waves spanning 40 and 45 h, respectively. Over the course of 5 years, 323 h of data in June reveal that the major wave periods occur in several groups centered from ~3.5 to 7.5 h, with vertical phase speeds of 0.8–2 m/s. These 3–10 h waves possess more than half of the spectral energy for ~93% of the time. A rigorous prewhitening, postcoloring technique is introduced for frequency power spectra investigation. The resulting spectral slopes are unusually steep (−2.7) below ~100 km but gradually become shallower with increasing altitude, reaching about −1.6 at 110 km. Two‐dimensional fast Fourier transform spectra confirm that these waves have a uniform dominant vertical wavelength of 20–30 km across periods of 3.5–10 h. These statistical features shed light on the wave source and pave the way for future research.

[1] This study presents the first coincident observation of inertia-gravity waves (IGWs) by lidar and radar in the Antarctic mesopause region. This is also the first known observation of two simultaneous IGWs at the same location. An Fe Boltzmann lidar at Arrival Heights (77.8 S, 166.7 E) provides high-resolution temperature data, and a co-located MF radar provides wind data. On 29 June 2011, coherent wave structures are observed in both the Fe lidar temperature and MF radar winds. Two dominant waves are determined from the temperature data with apparent periods of 7.7 AE 0.2 and 5.0 AE 0.1 h and vertical wavelengths of 22 AE 2 and 23 AE 2 km, respectively. The simultaneous measurements of temperature and wind allow the intrinsic wave properties to be derived from hodograph analyses unambiguously. The analysis shows that the longer-period wave propagates northward with an azimuth of θ = 11 AE 5 clockwise from north. This wave has a horizontal wavelength of l h = 2.2 AE 0.2 Â 10 3 km and an intrinsic period of t I = 7.9 AE 0.3 h. The intrinsic horizontal phase speed (C Ih ) for this wave is 80 AE 4 m/s, while the horizontal and vertical group velocities (C gh and C gz ) are 48 AE 3 m/s and 0.5 AE 0.1 m/s, respectively. The shorter-period wave has t I = 4.5 AE 0.3 h and θ = 100 AE 4 with l h = 1.1 AE 0.1 Â 10 3 km and C Ih = 68 AE 5 m/s. Its group velocities are C gh = 58 AE 5 m/s and C gz = 1.1 AE 0.1 m/s. Therefore, both waves propagate with very shallow elevation angles from the horizon (f = 0.6 AE 0.1 and f = 1.1 AE 0.1 for the longer-and shorter-period waves, respectively) but originate from different sources. Our analysis suggests that the longer-period IGW most likely originates from the stratosphere in a region of unbalanced flow.

Five years of Fe Boltzmann lidar's Rayleigh temperature data from 2011 to 2015 at McMurdo are used to characterize gravity wave potential energy mass density (Epm), potential energy volume density (Epv), vertical wave number spectra, and static stability N2 in the stratosphere 30–50 km. Epm (Epv) profiles increase (decrease) with altitude, and the scale heights of Epv indicate stronger wave dissipation in winter than in summer. Altitude mean Etrue¯pm and Etrue¯pv obey lognormal distributions and possess narrowly clustered small values in summer but widely spread large values in winter. Etrue¯pm and Etrue¯pv vary significantly from observation to observation but exhibit repeated seasonal patterns with summer minima and winter maxima. The winter maxima in 2012 and 2015 are higher than in other years, indicating interannual variations. Altitude mean trueN2¯ varies by ~30–40% from the midwinter maxima to minima around October and exhibits a nearly bimodal distribution. Monthly mean vertical wave number power spectral density for vertical wavelengths of 5–20 km increases from summer to winter. Using Modern Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications version 2 data, we find that large values of Etrue¯pm during wintertime occur when McMurdo is well inside the polar vortex. Monthly mean Etrue¯pm are anticorrelated with wind rotation angles but positively correlated with wind speeds at 3 and 30 km. Corresponding correlation coefficients are −0.62, +0.87, and +0.80, respectively. Results indicate that the summer‐winter asymmetry of Etrue¯pm is mainly caused by critical level filtering that dissipates most gravity waves in summer. Etrue¯pm variations in winter are mainly due to variations of gravity wave generation in the troposphere and stratosphere and Doppler shifting by the mean stratospheric winds.