Investigating an unusually large 28-day oscillation in mesospheric temperature over Antarctica using ground-based and satellite measurements

The Utah State University (USU) Advanced Mesospheric Temperature Mapper (AMTM) was deployed at the Amundsen‐Scott South Pole Station in 2010 to measure OH temperature at ~87 km as part of an international network to study the mesospheric dynamics over Antarctica. During the austral winter of 2014, an unusually large amplitude ~28‐day oscillation in mesospheric temperature was observed for ~100 days from the South Pole Station. This study investigates the characteristics and global structure of this exceptional planetary‐scale wave event utilizing ground‐based mesospheric OH temperature measurements from two Antarctic stations (South Pole and Rothera) together with satellite temperature measurements from the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) on the Aura satellite, and the Solar Occultation For Ice Experiment (SOFIE) on the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) satellite. Our analyses have revealed that this large oscillation is a winter time, high latitude phenomenon, exhibiting a coherent zonal wave #1 structure below 80 km altitude. At higher altitudes, the wave was confined in longitude between 180‐360°E. The amplitude of this oscillation reached ~15 K at 85 km and it was observed to grow with altitude as it extended from the stratosphere into the lower thermosphere in the southern hemisphere. The satellite data further established the existence of this oscillation in the northern hemisphere during the boreal winter time. The main characteristics and global structure of this event as observed in temperature are consistent with the predicted 28‐day Rossby Wave (1,4) mode.

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