Over a million times a second, radar-detectable meteoroids ablate in
the lower thermosphere, leaving behind plasma trails that the neutral
winds transport. These trails create intense radar echoes and so, for
over 50 years, radars have tracked these trails as an easy way to
monitor winds in the lower thermosphere. These measurements have
become important for understanding and modeling winds, tides and
gravity waves in this region \citep{Hedin:Empirical96,
Clemesha:review04}.
A number of meteor wind tracking techniques exist. Specular meteor
radar measures the Doppler shift of meteors that pass through the
atmosphere precisely perpendicular to the pointing direction of the
radar. This relatively inexpensive technique can measure winds between 85
and 100 km altitude depending on the broadcast frequency. However,
these radars must make many measurements to build up a wind profile,
typically over the course of an hour. As a result, such measurements are averages over
both space and time.
Modern specular meteor radars typically include some degree of
interferometry, allowing one to determine the meteor's location and
trajectory. This allows for better resolution of wind measurements.
Nevertheless, this technique produces wind profiles with a vertical
resolution generally larger than 1km, often far larger .
%Over the past six decades, over 400 rockets released
%chemical tracers to measure winds in the LT \citep{Larsen:Winds02}.
%This represents an enormous investment in obtaining these wind
%profiles. For a far smaller cost, one can obtain similar measurements
%using radar tracking of meteor trails.
Fig of meteor radar
The meteor height-ceiling limits the top altitude detectable by a
specular radar. When the trail cross-sectional diameter exceeds the transmit
wavelength it becomes effectively invisible to the radar. This
occurs roughly when the neutral-plasma mean-free-path exceeds the
same wavelength. Hence, lower frequency radars can detect higher
altitude winds. However, ionospheric effects such as phase-delay and
refraction more strongly modify these measurements. The lack of
frequent, intense meteors sets the lower altitude.
Fig of winds from meteor radar
\subsection{Non-Specular Meteor Radar}
A newer method of remotely measuring winds also takes advantage of the
billions of meteors that enter the atmosphere every day, leaving
behind plasma trails which the neutral wind carries along. However,
instead of using a small radar to track the entire trail, this method
uses large radars to follow reflections from plasma irregularities
that develop in or near many trails
\citep{Oppenheim:Electrodynamics00}. This requires that the radars
have interferometric capabilities and can point roughly perpendicular
to the geomagnetic field. Since it first presented
in 2009, only two radars have applied this method, the Jicamarca Radio
Observatory and a smaller radar in China \citep{Oppenheim:Remote09, Li:comparison12}
%then they can infer wind
%velocities as a function of altitude.
By measuring winds between 93 and 110km, this approach explores a
region that overlaps the highest altitudes monitored by specular
meteor radars but extends considerably higher. This technique does
not require the temporal and spatial averaging typically used when
obtaining winds from specular meteor radars or LIDARs, but instead
measures detailed wind profiles with an altitude resolution of less
than a few hundred meters. Further, between midnight and dawn, this
method can be used to monitor winds on a nearly continuous basis.
The phase difference between channels gives the meteor trail position
and, as seen in Figure \ref{f:Data}, shows a clear evolution with time.
% One can see that the horizontal wind has a
%strong shear in the zonal (E-W) direction, ranging from 7m/s at
%98km altitude to 102m/s at 96km while the meridional (N-S) wind
%shows far less shear.
In a 2 minute period, JRO will often detect more than a dozen meteors
lasting 10s or longer in the hours before dawn. Figure
\ref{f:profile} shows two wind profiles obtained by combining all the
meteors in a two data set. These measurements extend from 93km to
109km and indicate that the east winds have less variability than the north winds.
Non-specular trails result from radar scattering from field aligned
irregularities which, in turn, derive from instabilities evolving into
turbulence \citep{Oppenheim:Plasma02b,Dimant:Meteor06b}. This means
that radars measure wave-fronts within a turbulent plasma. These
wavefronts may have non-zero average phase velocities which may affect
the phase of the returning signal and potentially add error to our
results. Nevertheless, the measured results appear highly accurate
and consistent from meteor to meteor.
While fig.~\ref{f:phase} shows a clear overall slope, enabling us to
make an accurate determination of the horizontal wind speed,
the signal includes substantial deviations from this trend (eg., see
the phases changes at 6s). These deviations make it challenging to
obtain wind data from meteor trails lasting less than 3 seconds.
Only radars that can point nearly perpendicular to $\vec B$ can
measure winds from non-specular trails. Hence, the Arecibo, EISCAT,
and Sondrestrom radars cannot make these measurements but JRO, MU, and
EAR can.
Low latitude radars can use this method to obtain altitude
resolutions below a few hundred meters. Higher latitude
radars will need to point at lower elevation angles which will reduce their
altitude resolution but will increase the observing volume and
likelihood of detecting a strong meteor trail. Also, they will need to
use the Doppler shift to calculate the component of the wind velocity away
from the radar to obtain meridional winds.
This technique works best between midnight and dawn. After dawn,
meteor trails become substantially {less frequent and less enduring}
because of the effects of {the background ionosphere} on trail formation
and duration. We estimate it will require about 6-8 times as long an
observing period to produce similar wind data \citep{Oppenheim:Day08}.
Between noon and dusk, we have the added problem that the meteor rate
drops. After sunset, trail durations should increase but the count
rate remains quite low until we approach midnight.
While the JRO is a good tool for performing this type of monitoring,
far smaller radar can do this quite well. In fact, a group
in China recently demonstrated this technique using just six simple antennas
\citep{Li:comparison12}. They demonstrated reasonable agreement
between the non-specular and classical radar approaches.
The horizontal wind model (HWM93) of \citet{Hedin:Empirical96}
predicts considerably lower wind velocities between 90 and 115 km
altitude than we see in our current measurements. These winds
generally reach less than 50m/s for the zonal winds and less for the
meridional one. These measurements derive from MF radar wind and
specular meteor radar data. Our observations and the in-situ rocket
measurements show consistently higher winds, reaching twice or more
the HWM93 values \citep{Larsen:Winds02}.