Analysis of the vertical propagation of gravity waves in the study of the mesosphere-ionosphere coupling

Abstract

The mesosphere-ionosphere coupling will be studied through the analysis of the characteristics of the vertical propagation of gravity waves (GWs). The analyses are planned to be conducted from airglow images registered by the all-sky imagers installed in the observatories of the Universidade do Vale do Paraíba (UNIVAP), at São José dos Campos (23,2° S; 45,9º O), Palmas (10,16° S; 48,26º O) and in the observatory of Pico dos Dias (OPD( from Laboratório Nacional de Astronomia - LNA/CNPq, Brasópolis (22,53º S, 45,57º O). OH and OI 557,7 nm mesospheric airglow and also OI630,0 nm ionospheric airglow are recorded by the all-sky imagers. The observations conducted since 2008 are going to be used in this investigation. The parameterization of the GWs can be made by analyzing the airglow images into computer software developed at UNIVAP (FAPESP process No. 2010/03545-0). The vertical propagation of each GW analyzed from the airglow observations will be obtained after the calculation of the vertical and horizontal group velocities, and from the comparison of the wavelengths, periods and phase velocities of the waves estimated at both mesospheric and ionospheric heights. Furthermore, the phase velocities and the wind velocities in the same direction of the GW shall be compared in the analysis. The principal objective here is to study the main changes experienced by the gravity waves that propagate vertically from the ionosphere to the mesosphere and, thus, to provide support for the understanding of the coupling between these two atmospheric regions and their importance for the study of space weather. (AU)