Ae. Hedin et al., EMPIRICAL WIND MODEL FOR THE UPPER, MIDDLE AND LOWER ATMOSPHERE, Journal of atmospheric and terrestrial physics, 58(13), 1996, pp. 1421-1447
The HWM90 thermospheric wind model has been revised in the lower therm
osphere and extended into the mesosphere, stratosphere and lower atmos
phere to provide a single analytic model for calculating zonal and mer
idional wind profiles representative of the climatological average for
various geophysical conditions. Gradient winds from CIRA-86 plus rock
et soundings, incoherent scatter radar, MF radar, and meteor radar pro
vide the data base and are supplemented by previous data driven model
summaries. Low-order spherical harmonics and Fourier series are used t
o describe the major variations throughout the atmosphere including la
titude, annual, semiannual, local time (tides), and longitude (station
ary wave 1), with a cubic spline interpolation in altitude. The model
represents a smoothed compromise between the original data sources. Al
though agreement between various data sources is generally good, some
systematic differences are noted, particularly near the mesopause. Ove
rall root mean square differences between data and model values are on
the order of 15 m/s in the mesosphere and 10 m/s in the stratosphere
for zonal winds, and 10 m/s and 5 m/s respectively for meridional wind
s. (C) 1996 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.