ANGEO Annales Geophysicae ANGEO Ann. Geophys. 1432-0576 Copernicus Publications Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/angeo-27-953-2009 The noctilucent cloud (NLC) display during the ECOMA/MASS sounding rocket flights on 3 August 2007: morphology on global to local scales Baumgarten G. 1 Fiedler J. 1 Fricke K. H. 2 Gerding M. 1 Hervig M. 3 Hoffmann P. 1 Müller N. 1 Pautet P.-D. 4 Rapp M. 1 Robert C. 5 Rusch D. 6 von Savigny C. 5 Singer W. 1 Leibniz-Institut für Atmosphärenphysik e. V., 18225 Kühlungsborn, Germany Physikalisches Institut der Universität Bonn, 53115 Bonn, Germany GATS, Inc., Driggs, Idaho, 83422, USA Utah State University, Center for Atmospheric and Space Sciences, Logan UT, 84322-4405, USA Institut für Umweltphysik der Universität Bremen, 28359 Bremen, Germany Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80303, USA 02 03 2009 27 3 953 965 Copyright: © 2009 G. Baumgarten et al. 2009 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/27/953/2009/angeo-27-953-2009.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://angeo.copernicus.org/articles/27/953/2009/angeo-27-953-2009.pdf

During the ECOMA/MASS rocket campaign large scale NLC/PMC was observed by satellite, lidar and camera from polar to mid latitudes. We examine the observations from different instruments to investigate the morphology of the cloud. Satellite observations show a planetary wave 2 structure. Lidar observations from Kühlungsborn (54&deg; N), Esrange (68&deg; N) and ALOMAR (69&deg; N) show a highly dynamic NLC layer. Under favorable solar illumination the cloud is also observable by ground-based cameras. The cloud was detected by cameras from Trondheim (63&deg; N), Juliusruh (55&deg; N) and Kühlungsborn. We investigate planetary scale morphology and local scale gravity wave structures, important for the interpretation of the small scale rocket soundings. We compare in detail the lidar observations with the NLC structure observed by the camera in Trondheim. The ALOMAR RMR-lidar observed only a faint NLC during the ECOMA launch window, while the camera in Trondheim showed a strong NLC display in the direction of ALOMAR. Using the high resolution camera observations (<I>t</I>~30 s, &Delta;<I>x</I>&lt;5 km) and the wind information from the meteor radar at ALOMAR we investigate the formation and destruction of NLC structures. We observe that the NLC brightness is reduced by a factor of 20–40 within 100 s which can be caused by a temperature about 15 K above the frostpoint temperature. A horizontal temperature gradient of more than 3 K/km is estimated.

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