The role of the afternoon thermospheric winds on the pre-reversal enhancement as measured by the SOFDI instrument at Huancayo, Peru

We present both night and day thermospheric wind observations made over the recent years with the Second-generation, Optimized, Fabry-Perot Doppler Imager (SOFDI), a triple-etalon Fabry-Perot interferometer designed to make 24-hour measurements of thermospheric winds from OI 630-nm emission. These results were obtained from under the magnetic equator at Huancayo, Peru during the summer 2011-2015 periods and are compared to Jicamarca incoherent scatter radar measurements of the pre-reversal enhancement (PRE). We report 1) the climatology of the summer winds above Huancyao, 2) the direct relationship between the afternoon winds and the magnitude of the PRE, and 3) the large variability seen in the afternoon winds, which are likely caused by synoptic tidal activity modulating gravity waves. These results confirm the role that the thermospheric winds play in modulating equatorial dynamics, and further demonstrate the need for both zonal and meridional components of the wind flow.