Observations of Mesospheric Temperature Variability Over the Andes

Observations of mesospheric OH(6,2) rotational temperatures by the Utah State University Mesospheric Temperature Mapper (MTM) located at the Andes Lidar Observatory, Cerro Pachon, Chile (30.3°S, 70.7°S) reveal a large range of nightly variations induced by atmospheric gravity waves and tides, as well as strong seasonal oscillations. This study investigates MTM temperature variability over the past 3.5 years comprising over 800 nights of high-quality data and compares the results with ground-based spectrometric measurements from nearby El Leoncito Observatory, Argentina, Maui-MALT, Hawaii MTM measurements (2001-2005) and coincident mesospheric temperature measurement by SABER on the NASA TIMED satellite