Comparison of Na Lidar and Meteor Radar Wind Measurements at Starfire Optical Range, NM, USA

Simultaneous wind measurements in the mesopause region at Starfire Optical Range near Albuquerque, NM with Na wind/temperature lidar and meteor radar have been performed and compared. 20 nights of hourly data recorded with these two instruments at two layers around 86 and 93 km altitude are compared for both zonal and meridional wind components. The mean values are found to have no statistically significant differences. The correlation coefficients vary between 0.63 and 0.70, indicating that the two sets of measurements are broadly consistent. When comparing the averaged variations over the night, the two measurements are highly correlated, with correlation coefficients varying from 0.84 to 0.95. It indicates that the strong tidal variation is well captured by both instruments. Differences are however significant at individual hours, which are believed to be mainly due to the fact that the meteor radar wind is an average over the entire sky while the lidar measures wind within a volume about 100 m in diameter.