Intense turbulence in the polar mesosphere - Rocket and radar measurements
Two radars respectively operating at 53.5 MHz and 224 MHz have been used to simultaneously measure the polar mesospheric summer echoes (PMSEs) during the launch of a sounding rocket designed to measure the fluctuations in the electron density in the same height range. Some features of the data obtained are consistent with nearly isotropic, intense, meter-scale turbulence on the day of the observations. A dissipation rate is derived from the spectral width of the 53.5 MHz backscatter signal and from the rocket electron density fluctuation data; the diffusive subrange occurs at a wavelength which is a factor of 10 greater than the viscous subrange. This corresponds to a Schmidt number of about 100.