Ca. Tepley, NEUTRAL WINDS OF THE MIDDLE ATMOSPHERE OBSERVED AT ARECIBO USING A DOPPLER RAYLEIGH LIDAR, JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-ATMOSPHERES, 99(D12), 1994, pp. 25781-25790
We present our observations of the neutral winds of the tropical middl
e atmosphere that we made over a 2-year period at the Arecibo Observat
ory in Puerto Rico. The technique involves the use of a Doppler Raylei
gh lidar that measures the spectral shift of the backscattered laser l
ight up to 60 km altitude. We generally find the winds to have discern
ible patterns although we also observe a high degree of daily variabil
ity. We discuss these seasonal patterns and the daily variability and
compare our measurements with balloon radiosonde measurements and with
models of the tropical middle atmosphere.