International Multi Instrument Observations to study Atmospheric Coupling Processes in Southern Argentina

JANCHES, D.; FRITTS, DC; DE LA TORRE, A.; ALEXANDER, P.; LLAMEDO, P.; HIERRO, R.

Buenos Aires

Congreso; ; XI Latin American Conference on Space Geophysics; 2018

The lee of the Southern Andes and Antarctic Peninsula is one of the largest seasonal Gravity Wave (GW) hot spots on the planet. The lack of observations in this highlydynamical region has been the driver for the operation of the SouthernArgentina Agile MEteor Radar (SAAMER), at the Estacion Astronomica Rio Grandein Tierra del Fuego (53.7°S, 67.7°W). Since its deployment in May 2008,SAAMER has been providing near-continuous high-resolution measurements of windsand high-frequency GW momentum fluxes of the 75-100 km altitude region.SAAMER?s observations have shown this to be a key location to study GWs andtheir interaction with large-scale motions. Climatology studies collected thusfar have shown large eastward GW momentum fluxes during local winter. These areparticularly surprising since they cannot be explained by the direct upwardpropagation of expected large-amplitude mountain waves (MWs) through theeastward stratospheric jet. Instead, these results have been interpreted assecondary GWs propagating away from stratospheric sources over the Andesaccompanying MW breaking over the Southern Andes. With the purpose to study indetail these complex processes we have begun in November 2017 a 2 year longinternational multi-instrumental campaign which will further-expand themeasurement capabilities. These will include 1) all-sky airglow imagingperformed by Boston University of GW and instability dynamics at the altitudesat which SAAMER measures large-scale dynamics and GWs, 2) new Rayleigh lidarmeasurements by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) of temperatures from ~20-87km, and 3) an Advanced Mesospheric Temperature Mapper (AMTM) by Utah StateUniversity which provides infrared digital imaging system that measuresselected emission lines in the mesospheric OH (3,1) band to create intensityand temperature maps of the mesosphere. In this paper we present an overview ofresults obtained and planned measurements.