The research described in this thesis can be categorized into three main areas. The first area concerns the interpretation of observations of various atmospheric processes and phenomena. The focus here has been on internal atmospheric gravity waves and their manifestation in radar winds and in airglow intensities, but also includes investigation of atmospheric tides and planetary scale waves, D-region electron densities and collision frequencies, the aspect sensitivity of backscattering and partially reflecting regions of the atmosphere, Polar Mesosphere Summer Echoes and Mesosphere Summer Echoes, meteor trails, mesospheric temperatures, long period variations in airglow intensities, and Kelvin Helmholtz Instabilities. The second major area has been in the development of new experimental techniques and the validation of existing techniques for investigating the atmosphere. New techniques have included the dual–beam radar technique for measuring momentum fluxes, and radar Time Domain Interferometry and Hybrid Doppler Interferometry for use with multi-receiver channel Doppler radars. The Doppler Beam Steering technique in the presence of non-uniform and periodically varying wind fields has been investigated analytically, and various spaced sensor techniques have been investigated using a numerical model of atmospheric radar backscattering and by direct comparison with other techniques. The Sodium Lidar technique has been investigated through numerical model calculations and a solid state system is currently being developed. Finally, a major activity has been the development of new radars and radar subsystems. This has included the development of a modular Medium Frequency Doppler radar and a Medium Frequency Spaced Antenna radar, a variety of Stratosphere Troposphere / Mesosphere Stratosphere Troposphere radars, an Ionospheric radar, a Boundary Layer Tropospheric radar and an All-Sky meteor radar. / http://proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/login?url= http://library.adelaide.edu.au/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=1347218 / Thesis (D.Sc.) - University of Adelaide, School of Chemistry and Physics, 2008

Look up! Travelling over your head in the air are waves. They are present all the time in the atmosphere all over the Earth. Now imagine throwing a small rock in a pond and watching the ripples spread out around it. The same thing happens in the atmosphere except the rock is a thunderstorm, the wind blowing over a mountain, or another disturbance. As the wave (known as a gravity wave) travels upwards the thinning air allows the wave to grow larger and larger. Eventually the gravity wave gets too large – and like waves on the beach – it crashes causing whitewater or turbulence. If you are in the shallow water when the ocean wave crashes or breaks, you would feel the energy and momentum from the wave as it pushes or even knocks you over. In the atmosphere, when waves break they transfer their energy and momentum to the background wind changing its speed and even direction. This affects the circulation of the atmosphere. These atmospheric waves are not generally visible to the naked eye but by using special instruments we can observe their effects on the wind, temperature, density, and pressure of the atmosphere. This dissertation discusses the use of a specialized camera to study gravity waves as they travel through layers of the atmosphere 50 miles above the Andes Mountains and change the temperature. First, we introduce the layers of the atmosphere, the techniques used for observing these waves, and the mathematical theory and properties of these gravity waves. We then discuss the camera, its properties, and its unique feature of acquiring temperatures in the middle layer of the atmosphere. We introduce the observatory high in the Andes Mountains and why it was selected. We will look at the nightly fluctuations (or willy-nillyness) and long-term trends from August 2009 until December 2017. We compare measurements from the camera with similar measurements obtained from a satellite taken at the same altitude and measurements from the same camera when it was used at a different location, over Hawaii. Next, we measure the amount of change in the temperature and compare it to a nearby location on the other side of the Andes Mountains. Finally, we look for a specific type of gravity wave caused by wind blowing over the mountains called a mountain wave and perform statistics of those observed events over a period of six years. By understanding the changes in atmospheric properties caused by gravity waves we can learn more about their possible sources. By knowing their sources, we can better understand how much energy is being transported in the atmosphere, which in turn helps with better weather and climate models. Even now –all of this is going on over your head!

This doctoral dissertation has mainly concentrated on modeling studies of shorter period acoustic-gravity waves propagating in the upper atmosphere. Several cases have been investigated in the literature, which are focusing on the propagation characteristics of high-frequency gravity wave packets. The dissertation consists of five main divisions of which each has its own significance to be addressed, and these five chapters are also bridged in order with each other to present a theme about gravity wave ducting dynamics, energetics, and airglows. The first chapter is served as an introduction of the general topic about atmospheric acoustic-gravity waves. Some of the historical backgrounds are provided as an interesting refreshment and also as a motivation reasoning this scientific research for decades. A new 2-D, time-dependent, and nonlinear model is introduced in the second chapter (the AGE-TIP model, acronymically named atmospheric gravity waves for the Earth plus tides and planetary waves). The model is developed during this entire doctoral study and has carried out almost all research results in this dissertation. The third chapter is a model application for shorter period gravity waves ducted in a thermally stratified atmosphere. In spite of mean winds the thermal ducting occurs because ducted waves are fairly common occurrences in airglow observations. One-dimensional Fourier analysis is applied to identify the ducted wave modes that reside within multiple thermal ducts. Besides, the vertical energy flux and the wave kinetic energy density are derived as wave diagnostic variables to better understand the time-resolved vertical transport of wave energy in the presence of multiple thermal ductings. The fourth chapter is also a model application for shorter period gravity waves, but it instead addresses the propagation of high-frequency gravity waves in the presence of mean background wind shears. The wind structure acts as a significant directional filter to the wave spectra and hence causes noticeable azimuthal variations at higher altitudes. In addition to the spectral analysis applied previously the wave action has been used to interpret the energy coupling between the waves and the mean flow among some atmospheric regions, where the waves are suspected to extract energy from the mean flow at some altitudes and release it to other altitudes. The fifth chapter is a concrete and substantial step connecting theoretical studies and realistic observations through nonlinearly coupling wave dynamic model with airglow chemical reactions. Simulated O (1S) (557.7 nm) airglow images are provided so that they can be compared with observational airglow images. These simulated airglow brightness variations response accordingly with minor species density fluctuations, which are due to propagating and ducting nonlinear gravity waves within related airglow layers. The thermal and wind structures plus the seasonal and geographical variabilities could significantly influence the observed airglow images. By control modeling studies the simulations can be used to collate with concurrent observed data, so that the incoherencies among them could be very useful to discover unknown physical processes behind the observed wave scenes.

The ionosphere is an electrically charged atmospheric region which is coupled to the sun, the magnetosphere, and the neutral atmosphere. The ionospheric state can significantly impact technological systems, especially those which utilize radio frequency energy. By studying ionospheric disturbances, it is possible to gain a deeper understanding of not only the ionosphere itself, but also the natural and technological systems it is coupled to. This dissertation research utilizes high frequency (HF) radio remote sensing techniques to study three distinct types of ionospheric disturbances. First, ground magnetometers and a new mid latitude SuperDARN HF radar at Blackstone, Virginia are used to observe magnetospheric Pi2 ultra low frequency (ULF) pulsations in the vicinity of the plasmapause. Prior to these pulsations, two Earthward moving fast plasma flows were detected by spacecraft in the magnetotail. Signatures of inner magnetospheric compression observed by the Blackstone radar provide conclusive evidence that the plasma flow bursts directly generated the ground Pi2 signature via a compressional wave. This mechanism had previously been hypothesized, but never confirmed. Next, ten SuperDARN radars in the North American Sector are used to investigate the sources and characteristics of atmospheric gravity waves (AGW) associated medium scale traveling ionospheric disturbances (MSTIDs) at both midlatitudes and high latitudes. Consistent with prior studies, the climatological MSTID population in both latitudinal regions was found to peak in the fall and winter and have a dominant equatorward propagation direction. Prior studies suggested these MSTIDs were caused by mechanisms associated with auroral and space weather activity; however, it is shown here that the AE and Sym-H indices are poorly correlated with MSTID observations. A new, multi-week timescale of MSTID activity is reported. This leads to the finding that MSTID occurrence is highly correlated with an index representative of polar vortex activity, possibly controlled by a filtering mechanism that is a function of stratospheric neutral wind direction. Finally, a case study of a radio blackout of transionospheric HF communications caused by an X2.9 class solar flare is presented. This study demonstrates the potential of a novel technique employing signals of opportunity and automated receiving networks voluntarily created by an international community of amateur radio operators. / Ph. D.

An important property of the Earth's atmosphere is its ability to support wave motions, and indeed, waves exist throughout the Earth's atmosphere at all times and all locations. What is the importance of these waves? Imagine standing on the beach as water waves come crashing into you. In this case, the waves transport energy and momentum to you, knocking you off balance. Similarly, waves in the atmosphere crash, known as breaking, but what do they crash into? They crash into the atmosphere knocking the atmosphere off balance in terms of the winds and temperatures. Although the Earth's atmosphere is full of waves, they cannot be observed directly; however, their effects on the atmosphere can be observed. Waves can be detected in the winds and temperatures, as mentioned above, but also in pressure and density. In this dissertation, three different studies of waves, known as gravity waves, were performed at three different locations. For these studies, we investigate the size of the waves and in which direction they move. Using specialized cameras, gravity waves were observed in the middle atmosphere (50-70 miles up) over Alaska (for three winter times) and Norway (for one winter time). A third study investigated gravity waves at a much higher altitude (70 miles on up) using radar data from Alaska (for three years). These studies have provided important new information on these waves and how they move through the atmosphere. This in turn helps to understand in which direction these waves are crashing into the atmosphere and therefore, which direction the energy and momentum are going. Studies such as these help to better forecast weather and climate.

The main mission of the JEM-EUSO (Extreme Universe Space Observatory) Collaborationis to observe Cosmic Rays. These high energy particles come from a variety of sources and bombard the Earth all the time. However, the higher the energy, the lower the flux, and particles with an energy above 1018eV (called Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays or UHECRs) are so sparse that just a few might hit the atmosphere in a year. When CRs, and UHECRs, hit the atmosphere they cause what is called Extensive Air Showers, EAS, a cascade of secondary particles. This limits the effectiveness of ground based observatories, and that is where theJEM-EUSO Collaboration comes in. The goal is to measure UHECRs, by observing the fluorescence of the EAS from space. This way huge areas of the atmosphere can be covered and both galactic hemispheres can be studied. Since the JEM-EUSO instruments are telescopes measuring in the near UV range, a lot of other phenomena can be observed. One of these applications is UV nightglow. Airglow in general are lights in the sky which are emitted from the atmosphere itself, while nightglow is simply the nighttime airglow. There are many uses of airglow, and one of these is as a medium to observe atmospheric gravity waves. The aim of this thesis is to investigate how a space-based photon counting telescope, such as those of the JEM-EUSO Collaboration, can be used to measure disturbances in the terrestrial nightglow, to identify atmospheric gravity waves. To accomplish this, a theoretical basis for these interactions was explored and a simple scenario was built to explore the plausibility of measuring UV nightglow modulations. The aim was to see what variables would affect a measurement, and how important they were. Along side this, a calibration was conducted on one of the JEM-EUSO Collaborations instruments, the EUSO-TA (EUSO-Telescope Array). The goal in the end was to try and measurethe night sky, to complement the calculations. The investigation showed that the conditions during the measurement are very important to the measurement. This includes things like background intensity, nightglow activity, and magnitude/shape of the modulations. Of more importance though are the parameters which can be actively changed to improve the measurement, the most important of which is measurement time. It was concluded that a measurement of the nightglow modulation should be, under the right conditions, possible to do with a currently operating instrument, the Mini-EUSO, or similar instrument. The calibration of the EUSO-TA involved a series of repairs and tests, which highlighted some strengths and weaknesses of the instrument. However, the calibration itself produced few workable results that in the best case scenario reduced the focal surface to an unevenly biased 2-by-2 Elementary Cell square. Unfortunately this would not be sufficient to do proper measurements with, but the process did point out shortcomings with the then involved sensors, as well as some problematic aspects of the software operating the instrument.