Joint measurements of wind and temperature structure in the winter mesosphere at high latitudes
An attempt to identify propagating internal gravity waves in the mesosphere was made by sounding the region with three instrumented rockets on January 13-14, 1970, from Churchill, Canada (59 N). The three observations, which were conducted at approximately 90 min. intervals, consisted of a pitot probe bracketed by two acoustic grenade soundings. Thus, two temperature and wind profiles and one density profile were obtained independently, permitting an examination of the thermodynamic structure and the wind structure. The results of the combined thermodynamic and wind observations were found to be quantitatively compatible with a gravity wave interpretation. This interpretation also predicts vertical velocities on the order of 10/msec in the 80 km region.