The occurrence altitudes of middle atmospheric temperature inversions and mesopause over low-latitude Indian sector

Abstract

We study the occurrence characteristics of mesospheric inversion layers (MILs) in the 60-105 km altitude region over the low-latitude Indian sector. We note that lower inversions in the mesospheric temperatures occur in the 70-75 km altitude regions while the upper inversions occur in 90-95 km altitude regions. The mesopause altitude is mostly noted to be ∼ 98 km with the night-time mesopause (particularly in the year 2002) showing a small peak in the mesopause occurrence at ∼ 75 km altitude. We note higher occurrence rate of MILs during high solar activity year compared to low solar activity year. It is also observed that night time MILs show a systematic seasonal variability, with higher occurrence of single and double temperature inversions during equinoxes. © Author(s) 2014. CC Attribution 3.0 License.