Diurnal Tidal Variability Over the Equator: Model and Measurement Comparisons

We compare equatorial migrating diurnal temperature estimates determined from measurements made by the Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry (SABER) instrument on the Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) satellite with predictions from the NCAR Thermosphere-Ionosphere-Mesosphere-Electrodynamics General Circulation Model (TIME-GCM) and the Global-Scale Wave Model (GSWM). We contrast the full model tidal results with diurnal tidal estimates determined from subsets of temperature predictions that represent what SABER would observe if it flew through the model atmospheres. Comparisons between the full and satellite sampled model temperatures suggest that there may be strong artifacts of the semidiurnal tide in the SABER diurnal tidal estimates above ~100 km.