Multistatic specular meteor radar network in Peru: System description
and initial results
Abstract
The mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) region is dominated globally
by dynamics at various scales: planetary waves, tides, gravity waves,
and stratified turbulence. The latter two can co-exist and be
significant at horizontal scales less than 500 km, scales that are
difficult to measure. This study presents a recently deployed
multi-static specular meteor radar system, SIMONe Peru, which can be
used to observe these scales. The radars are positioned at and around
the Jicamarca Radio Observatory, which is located at the magnetic
equator. Besides presenting preliminary results of typically reported
large scale features, like the dominant diurnal tide at low latitudes,
we show results on selected days of spatially and temporally resolved
winds obtained with two methods based on: (a) estimation of mean wind
and their gradients (gradient method), and (b) an inverse theory with
Tikhonov regularization (regularized wind field inversion method). The
gradient method allows improved MLT vertical velocities and, for the
first time, low-latitude wind field parameters such as horizontal
divergence and relative vorticity. The regularized wind field inversion
method allows the estimation of spatial structure within the observed
area and has the potential to outperform the gradient method, in
particular when more detections are available or when fine adaptive
tuning of the regularization factor is done. SIMONe Peru adds important
information at low latitudes to currently scarce MLT continuous
observing capabilities. Results contribute to studies of the MLT
dynamics at different scales inherently connected to lower atmospheric
forcing and E-region dynamo related ionospheric variability.