ANGEO Annales Geophysicae ANGEO Ann. Geophys. 1432-0576 Copernicus Publications Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/angeo-24-1267-2006 In-situ electron and ion measurements and observed gravity wave effects in the polar mesosphere during the MaCWAVE program Croskey C. L. 1 Mitchell J. D. 1 Friedrich M. 2 Schmidlin F. J. 3 Goldberg R. A. 4 Pennsylvania State University, Department of Electrical Engineering, University Park, PA 16802, USA Graz University of Technology, A-8010 Graz, Austria NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Wallops Flight Facility, Code 972, Wallops Island, VA 23337, USA NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Laboratory for Solar and Space Physics, Code 612.3, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA 03 07 2006 24 4 1267 1278 Copyright: © 2006 C. L. Croskey et al. 2006 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This article is available from https://angeo.copernicus.org/articles/24/1267/2006/angeo-24-1267-2006.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://angeo.copernicus.org/articles/24/1267/2006/angeo-24-1267-2006.pdf

Langmuir probe electron and ion measurements from four instrumented rockets flown during the MaCWAVE (<B>M</B>ountain <B>a</B>nd <B>C</B>onvective <B>W</B>aves <B>A</B>scending <B>VE</B>rtically) program are reported. Two of the rockets were launched from And&#248;ya Rocket Range, Norway, in the summer of 2002. Electron scavenging by ice particulates produced reductions of the electron density in both sharp narrow (&asymp;1&ndash;2 km) layers and as a broad (&asymp;13 km) depletion. Small-scale irregularities were observed in the altitude regions of both types of electron depletion. The scale of the irregularities extended to wavelengths comparable to those used by ground-based radars in observing PMSE. In regions where ice particles were not present, analysis of the spectral signatures provided reasonable estimates of the energy deposition from breaking gravity waves. <P style="line-height: 20px;"> Two more instrumented rockets were flown from Esrange, Sweden, in January&nbsp;2003. Little turbulence or energy deposition was observed during one flight, but relatively large values were observed during the other flight. The altitude distribution of the observed turbulence was consistent with observations of a semidiurnal tide and gravity wave instability effects as determined by ground-based lidar and radar measurements and by falling sphere measurements of the winds and temperatures (Goldberg et al., 2006; Williams et al., 2006).