Identification

Title

Seasonal Variation of Thermospheric Composition Observed by NASA GOLD

Abstract

We examine characteristics of the seasonal variation of thermospheric composition using column number density ratio ∑O/N2 observed by the NASA Global Observations of Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission from low-mid to mid-high latitudes. We found that the ∑O/N2 seasonal variation is hemispherically asymmetric: in the southern hemisphere, it exhibits the well-known annual and seminal pattern, with highs near the equinoxes, and primary and secondary lows near the solstices. In the northern hemisphere, it is dominated by an annual variation, with a minor semiannual component with the highs shifting towards the wintertime. We also found that the durations of the December and June solstice seasons in terms of thermospheric composition are highly variable with longitude. Our hypothesis is that ion-neutral collisional heating in the equatorial ionization anomaly region and auroral Joule heating play substantial roles in this longitudinal dependency.

Resource type

dataset

Resource locator

https://gdex.ucar.edu/dataset/id/4b271389-d4b2-47f9-a394-76c2a69f1f74.html

protocol: https

applicationProfile: browser

name: Seasonal Variation of Thermospheric Composition Observed by NASA GOLD

description: Metadata Link

function: download

Unique resource identifier

code

codeSpace

Dataset language

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Dataset

originating controlled vocabulary

title

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2014-10-16

Keyword set

keyword value

EARTH SCIENCE > SUN-EARTH INTERACTIONS > IONOSPHERE/MAGNETOSPHERE DYNAMICS > ION CHEMISTRY/IONIZATION

EARTH SCIENCE > SUN-EARTH INTERACTIONS > SOLAR ENERGETIC PARTICLE PROPERTIES > PARTICLE DENSITY

originating controlled vocabulary

title

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2018-03-15

Keyword set

keyword value

Earth Remote Sensing Instruments > Passive Remote Sensing > Spectrometers/Radiometers > Spectrometers > Gold > Global-Scale Observations Of The Limb And Disk

originating controlled vocabulary

title

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2018-03-15

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

-180.0

East bounding longitude

180.0

North bounding latitude

60.0

South bounding latitude

-60.0

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

2018-10-05

End position

2021-09-30

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2022-02-10

date type

modified

effective date

2022-02-10

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

application/octet-stream

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - High Altitude Observatory

email address

lqian@ucar.edu

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - GDEX

email address

gdex@ucar.edu

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2022-02-10T13:37:35-07:00

Metadata language