Can we identify effects from the 11 year solar cycle in AIM PMC Data?
Abstract
One of the primary objectives of the AIM extended mission is to understand the solar cycle variation of Polar Mesospheric Clouds (PMCs). Complicating this problem have been two unexpected phenomena. First, it has become clear that PMCs vary greatly in response to meteorological variability propagating upwards from the stratosphere or teleconnecting from the opposite (winter) hemisphere. Second, the first 4 years of the AIM mission (2007-2010) corresponded to historically very low solar activity. Recently, solar activity has increased modestly; however, the problem remains of pulling out a weak signal (solar) against a noisy background (dynamics). There are two ways to reduce the geophysical noise. First, we note that due to the dynamically active Northern Hemisphere (NH) winter, the effects of meteorological teleconnections are greatest on Southern Hemisphere PMCs. By focusing on Northern Hemisphere PMCs, we get less dynamical variability. Second, it has been shown that by correlating PMC properties with stratospheric winter temperatures, a functional relationship between PMCs and dynamics can be established. In principle, deviations from this functional relationship could be interpreted as due to external forcing, i.e. from solar variability. Expectations are that clouds should decrease for higher levels of solar forcing. Surprisingly however, in 2011, the first year with higher solar activity, the SOFIE instrument on AIM saw more clouds in July than ever. We explore possible reasons for this anomaly, including the possibility of an enhancement in H2O from the launch of STS135 on July 8th. To date, 2012 also shows moderately higher solar activity, but without the contaminating effects of shuttle exhaust. We will evaluate whether PMCs were affected by solar activity in 2012. Acknowledgements: This work was sponsored by the NASA AIM Small Explorer program.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2012
- Bibcode:
- 2012AGUFMSA13C..08S
- Keywords:
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- 0305 ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE / Aerosols and particles;
- 0340 ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE / Middle atmosphere: composition and chemistry