The Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) mission: Overview and early science results

Russell, James M.; Bailey, S. M.; Gordley, L. L.; Rusch, D. W.; Horányi, M.; Hervig, Mark E.; Thomas, Gary E.; Randall, C. E.; Siskind, D. E.; Stevens, M. H.; Summers, M. E.; Taylor, Michael J.; Englert, C. R.; Espy, P. J.; McClintock, W. E.; Merkel, A. W.

doi:10.1016/j.jastp.2008.08.011

Cited by 205 publications

(139 citation statements)

References 48 publications

(48 reference statements)

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“…• N. The AIM satellite operates in a sun-synchronous orbit, hence only limited local times are available (Russell et al, 2009 ( Hervig et al, 2009a). In contrast to SOFIE, the CIPS instrument is less sensitive allowing only IWC events larger than 10 g/km 2 to be detectable (Lumpe et al, 2013).…”

Section: Ice Water Contentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Local Time Dependence of Polar Mesospheric Clouds: A model study

Schmidt¹,

Baumgarten²,

Berger³

et al. 2017

Preprint

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Abstract.The Mesospheric Ice Microphysics And tranSport model (MIMAS) is used to study local time (LT) variations of polar mesospheric clouds (PMC) in the northern hemisphere during the period from 1979 to 2013. We investigate the tidal behavior of brightness, altitude and occurrence frequency and find a good agreement between model and lidar observations. Mean ice water content (IWC) values from MIMAS also match those from satellite observations. In the latitudinal band of 67.5

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Section: Ice Water Contentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Local Time Dependence of Polar Mesospheric Clouds: A model study

Schmidt¹,

Baumgarten²,

Berger³

et al. 2017

Preprint

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“…It will be interesting to compare with the results of the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) mission, recently launched (2007) by NASA, first satellite mission entirely dedicated to the study of polar mesospheric clouds (Russell III et al, 2009). It would allow extending the climatology of AIM with the years [2003][2004][2005][2006], before the launch of AIM, for a better study of long term trends.…”

Section: Noctilucent Clouds (Polar Mesospheric Clouds)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Global ozone monitoring by occultation of stars: an overview of GOMOS measurements on ENVISAT

et al. 2010

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Abstract. GOMOS on ENVISAT (launched in February, 2002) is the first space instrument dedicated to the study of the atmosphere of the Earth by the technique of stellar occultations (Global Ozone Monitoring by Occultation of Stars). Its polar orbit makes good latitude coverage possible. Because it is self-calibrating, it is particularly well adapted to long time trend monitoring of stratospheric species. With 4 spectrometers, the wavelength coverage of 248 nm to 942 nm enables monitoring ozone, H 2 O, NO 2 , NO 3 , air density, aerosol extinction, and O 2 . Two additional fast photometers (with 1 kHz sampling rate) enable the correction of the effects of scintillations, as well as the study of the structure of air density irregularities resulting from gravity waves and turbulence. A high vertical resolution profile of the temperature may also be obtained from the time delay between the red and the blue photometer. Noctilucent clouds (Polar Mesospheric Clouds, PMC) are routinely observed in both polar summers and global observations of OClO and sodium are achieved.The instrument configuration, dictated by the scientific objectives' rationale and technical constraints, is described, together with the typical operations along one orbit, along with the statistics from over 6 years of operation. Typical atmospheric transmission spectra are presented and some retrieval difficulties are discussed, in particular for O 2 and H 2 O.Correspondence to: J. L. Bertaux (bertaux@latmos.ipsl.fr) An overview is presented of a number of scientific results already published or found in more detail as companion papers in the same ACP GOMOS special issue. This paper is particularly intended to provide an incentive for the exploitation of GOMOS data available to the whole scientific community in the ESA data archive, and to help GOMOS data users to better understand the instrument, its capabilities and the quality of its measurements, thus leading to an increase in the scientific return.

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“…Details of the AIM satellite mission and the SOFIE instrument can be found in Russell et al (2009) and Gordley et al (2009), respectively. SOFIE measures extinction profiles near the time of local sunrise or sunset, to study PMC characteristics during the summer seasons in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.…”

Section: Sofie -Solar Occultation For Ice Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantitative relation between PMSE and ice mass density

et al. 2010

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Abstract. Radar reflectivities associated with Polar Mesosphere Summer Echoes (PMSE) are compared with measurements of ice mass density in the mesopause region. The 54.5 MHz radar Moveable Atmospheric Radar for Antarctica (MARA), located at the Wasa/Aboa station in Antarctica (73 • S, 13 • W) provided PMSE measurements in December 2007 and January 2008. Ice mass density was measured by the Solar Occultation for Ice Experiment (SOFIE). The radar operated continuously during this period but only measurements close to local midnight are used for comparison, to coincide with the local time of the measurements of ice mass density. The radar location is at high geographic latitude but low geomagnetic latitude (61 • ) and the measurements were made during a period of very low solar activity. As a result, background electron densities can be modelled based on solar illumination alone. We find a close correlation between the time and height variations of radar reflectivity and ice mass density, at all PMSE heights, from 80 km up to 95 km. A quantitative expression relating radar reflectivities to ice mass density is found, including an empirical dependence on background electron density. Using this relation, we can use PMSE reflectivities as a proxy for ice mass density, and estimate the daily variation of ice mass density from the daily variation of PMSE reflectivities. According to this proxy, ice mass density is maximum around 05:00-07:00 LT, with lower values around local noon, in the afternoon and in the evening. This is consistent with the small number of previously published measurements and model predictions of the daily variation of noctilucent (mesospheric) clouds and in contrast to the daily variation of PMSE, which has a broad daytime maximum, extending from 05:00 LT to 15:00 LT, and an evening-midnight minimum.

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The Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) mission: Overview and early science results

Cited by 205 publications

References 48 publications

Local Time Dependence of Polar Mesospheric Clouds: A model study

Local Time Dependence of Polar Mesospheric Clouds: A model study

Global ozone monitoring by occultation of stars: an overview of GOMOS measurements on ENVISAT

Quantitative relation between PMSE and ice mass density

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