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The CPI Mesospheric Airglow Imaging and Dynamics (MAID) project primary objective is to characterize a variety of wave motion in the Arctic polar atmosphere. The main instrument is an airglow imager, a state of the art optical instrument, designed to remotely sense the faint airglow emissions. The imager is hosted (deployment early January 2011) at Poker Flat Research Range (PFRR) (65N, 147W) about 100 miles south of the Arctic Circle. The instrument is equipped with a suite of narrow-band filters to isolate various emissions of interest: the green OI line (557.7 nm), the fainter Na D (589.3 nm) and mesospheric O2 (865.5 nm), and a filter to monitor background (572.5 nm). The strong NIR OH broadband emission is detected using a broadband filter (715-930 nm) with a notch at 865.5 nm to exclude the O2 emission. In addition, a filter is included to monitor the thermospheric O2 emission at 630.0 nm, thus extending the imagers capability beyond the MLT range.

Short-period gravity waves are an important component of the larger atmospheric circulation as these waves are believed to be transport large amount of vertical moment flux into the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) region. The propagation nature and sources of these waves have been studied extensively at low- and mid-latitudes, while their extend and nature at the polar regions are largely unknown. Recently, an effort has been put forth to characterize the waves over the Antarctic continent, while the proposed project focus on the Arctic section. The proposed research will establish a long-term climatology of short-period gravity waves in the Arctic, including their dominant source regions, and influences of large-scale tidal and planetary wave motion. The co-located NICT Rayleigh lidar will provide essential temperature measurements to provide information regarding the vertical wave propagation, individual wave contribution to the Eliassen-Palm (EP) flux, and coupling between the lower and upper atmosphere during stratospheric warming events.

The MAID project is a collaboration between CPI, University of Alaska, Fairbanks (UAF), and Utah State University (USU). The project is sponsored by the National Science Foundation, Office of Polar Programs, under contract ARC-1023272.

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