First Simultaneous Lidar Observations of Thermosphere-Ionosphere Sporadic Ni and Na (TISNi and TISNa) Layers (&sim;105&ndash;120 km) Over Beijing (40.42&deg;N, 116.02&deg;E)

Fuju Wu; Xinzhao Chu; Lifang Du; Jing Jiao; Haoran Zheng; Yuchang Xun; Wuhu Feng; John M. C. Plane; Guotao Yang

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-16212

[Back] [Session ST3.4]

EGU23-16212, updated on 26 Feb 2023

https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-16212

EGU General Assembly 2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

First Simultaneous Lidar Observations of Thermosphere-Ionosphere Sporadic Ni and Na (TISNi and TISNa) Layers (∼105–120 km) Over Beijing (40.42°N, 116.02°E)

Fuju Wu^1,2, Xinzhao Chu³, Lifang Du², Jing Jiao², Haoran Zheng², Yuchang Xun^2,4, Wuhu Feng^5,6, John M. C. Plane⁵, and Guotao Yang²

Fuju Wu et al.

¹Henan Normal University, School of Physics, Xinxiang, China (wufuju0305@163.com)
²National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China,
³Cooperative Institute of Research in Environmental Sciences & Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA
⁴College of Physics and Optoelectronics, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, China
⁵School of Chemistry, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
⁶National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS), University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

We report the first simultaneous lidar observations of thermosphere-ionosphere sporadic nickel and Na (TISNi and TISNa) layers in altitudes ∼105–120 km over Yanqing (40.42°N, 116.02°E), Beijing. From two years of data spanning April 2019 to April 2020 and July 2020 to June 2021, TISNi layers in May and June possess high densities with a maximum of 818 cm −3 on 17 May 2021, exceeding the density of main layer peak (∼85 km) by ∼4 times. They correlate with strong sporadic E layers observed nearby. TISNa layers occur at similar altitudes as TISNi with spatial-temporal correlation coefficients of ∼1. The enrichment of Ni in TISNi is evident as the [TISNi]/[TISNa] column abundance ratios are ∼1, about 10 times the main layer [Ni]/[Na] ratios. These results are largely explained by neutralization of converged Ni + and Na + ions via recombination with electrons. Calculations show direct recombination dominating over dissociative recombination above ∼105 km.

How to cite: Wu, F., Chu, X., Du, L., Jiao, J., Zheng, H., Xun, Y., Feng, W., Plane, J. M. C., and Yang, G.: First Simultaneous Lidar Observations of Thermosphere-Ionosphere Sporadic Ni and Na (TISNi and TISNa) Layers (∼105–120 km) Over Beijing (40.42°N, 116.02°E), EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-16212, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-16212, 2023.