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Proceedings with Extended Abstracts (single PDF file) - Radio ...

Proceedings with Extended Abstracts (single PDF file) - Radio ...

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RESULTS OF SEVERAL YEARS MSE OBSERVATION ATKÜHLUNGSBORN (54°N)Marius Zecha, Jürgen Bremer, and Peter HoffmannLeibniz-Institut für Atmosphärenphysik and der Universität RostockD-18225 Kühlungsborn, GermanyIntroductionVery strong echoes from upper mesospheric heights in polar regions are observed by VHFradars for several years. The radar waves are backscattered by irregularities of the refractionindex of half the radar wavelength mainly caused by electron density fluctuations. Such smallirregularities should normally be destroyed at mesospheric heights by viscous forces.Therefore, it is commonly accepted that charged aerosols or ice particles prevent thedestruction of these irregularities by an effective reduction of the electron diffusivity (Cho etal., 1992, Rapp and Lübken, 2003). The good correlation between PMSE and noctilucentclouds (NLC) as found in simultaneous and common volume observations (von Zahn andBremer, 1999) confirm the existence of ice particles during PMSE.Mesosphere summer echoes (MSE) at mid-latitudes are a rare phenomenon in contrast to thecorresponding polar mesosphere summer echoes (PMSE) at arctic latitudes (Bremer et al.,2003, Zecha et al., 2003). Studies of MSE characteristics are therefore more seldom thanstudies of PMSE. Nearly continuous measurements at Kühlungsborn during the summers1998 and 2000 to 2002 gave the chance to study the main properties of MSE on goodstatistical conditions.ExperimentThe MSE observations were performed <strong>with</strong> the 53.5 MHz VHF radar system at Kühlungsborn(54.1°N, 11.8°E) near the Baltic Sea.The essential radar parameters used for mesospheric measurements are listed in the followingtable:operating frequency53.5 MHzpeak power36 (72) kWduty cycle 5%transmitting antenna144 Yagi arrayeff. Antenna area1900 m2receiving antennaarray divisible in 6 subarray a 24 Yagihalf-power beam width 6.0°pulse repetition frequency 1500 Hzpulse length 2 µscode (complementary) 16 bitsampling resolution300 mlength of time series~20 sec146

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