Experimental Validation of a Technique to Estimate Vertical Wavelength Parameters From Gravity Wave Perturbations on Mesospheric Airglows

This paper establishes the experimental validation of a new technique to estimate the key intrinsic atmospheric gravity wave (AGW) parameters from imagery of mesospheric airglow layers. The technique provides two independent methods for estimating AGW parameters. In one method, the magnitude of the wave fluctuations is analyzed from image data simultaneously acquired from different locations on the ground to estimate the vertical wavelength. In the other, the phase of the wave is analyzed over time from multiple layers to estimate its vertical wavelength and frequency. After a brief overview of the technique, it is applied to a dataset acquired during the New Mexico Wave Campaign (NMWC) in 2010-2011.