Estimating the impact of the 1991 Pinatubo eruption on mesospheric temperature by analyzing HALOE (UARS) temperature data

Wallis, Sandra; Hoffmann, Christoph Gregor; von Savigny, Christian

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-40-421-2022

Articles | Volume 40, issue 3

https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-40-421-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-40-421-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 40, issue 3

Regular paper

|

23 Jun 2022

Regular paper |

| 23 Jun 2022

Estimating the impact of the 1991 Pinatubo eruption on mesospheric temperature by analyzing HALOE (UARS) temperature data

Sandra Wallis, Christoph Gregor Hoffmann, and Christian von Savigny

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-40-421-2022-supplement

Data sets

UARS Halogen Occultation Experiment (HALOE) Level 2 V019 J. M. Russell III https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/datacollection/UARHA2FN_019.html

Penticton Solar Radio Flux at 10.7 cm Lasp Interactive Solar Irradiance Datacenter http://lasp.colorado.edu/lisird/data/penticton_radio_flux/

Model code and software

MPFITFUN C. B. Markwardt http://cow.physics.wisc.edu/~craigm/idl/down/mpfitfun.pro

PERCENTILES M. Schultz https://hesperia.gsfc.nasa.gov/ssw/packages/s3drs/idl/util/percentiles.pro

read_haloe_l2.pro J. Johnson https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/information/documents?title=UARS Mission Preservation Documents

Short summary

Although the 1991 eruption of Mt Pinatubo had a severe impact on Earth's climate, the effect of this event on the mesosphere is not well understood. We investigated satellite-borne temperature measurements from the HALOE instrument and found indications that a positive temperature anomaly is present in the tropical upper mesosphere at the beginning of the HALOE time series, which may be related to the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo.