Scientists from Japan have developed a comprehensive, long-term dataset on Earth’s entire atmosphere, extending all the way to space.
The project aims to provide insights into various little-explored processes occurring within Earth’s gaseous envelope, such as the spectacular northern lights phenomenon.
While some parts of Earth’s atmosphere are meticulously studied, like the troposphere and stratosphere with the help of numerous weather stations, meteorological balloons, and airplanes, the mesosphere remains largely unexplored. This higher region, beyond the stratosphere, is often referred to as the “ignorosphere” due to the lack of knowledge about its processes.
A team of researchers from the University of Tokyo used computer modeling to fill the gaps in understanding the mesosphere. By combining rare measurements from sounding rockets, radar, and lidar instruments, they developed a new data assimilation system to reconstruct the mesospheric activities.
This dataset covers a span of 19 years (from September 2004 to December 2023) and provides valuable information to study phenomena like auroras and their impact on Earth’s atmosphere.
Professor Kaoru Sato, the lead researcher, explained that the dataset can improve climate models and help understand the effects of space weather on Earth, including the creation of auroras, changes in ozone chemistry, and the propagation of gravity waves throughout the atmosphere.
Additionally, the dataset will aid in modeling the interactions between the lower atmosphere and the ionosphere, shedding light on phenomena like inter-hemispheric coupling, where high-altitude clouds appear simultaneously in the Antarctic mesosphere and Arctic stratosphere.
The researchers hope that this dataset will provide valuable insights into these atmospheric mysteries and improve our understanding of Earth’s complex atmospheric processes.
