The Earth's thermosphere and ionosphere constitute a dynamic system that varies daily in response to energy inputs from above and from below. This system can exhibit a significant response within an hour to changes in those inputs, as plasma and fluid processes compete to control its temperature, composition, and structure. Within this system, short wavelength solar radiation and charged particles from the magnetosphere deposit energy, and waves propagating from the lower atmosphere dissipate. Understanding the global-scale response of the thermosphere-ionosphere (T-I) system to these drivers is essential to advancing our physical understanding of coupling between the space environment and the Earth's atmosphere. Previous missions have successfully determined how the "climate" of the T-I system responds. The Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission will determine how the "weather" of the T-I responds, taking the next step in understanding the coupling between the space environment and the Earth's atmosphere. Operating in geostationary orbit, the GOLD imaging spectrograph will measure the Earth's emissions from 132 to 162 nm. These measurements will be used image two critical variables-thermospheric temperature and composition, near 160 km-on the dayside disk at half-hour time scales. At night they will be used to image the evolution of the low latitude ionosphere in the same regions that were observed earlier during the day. Due to the geostationary orbit being used the mission observes the same hemisphere repeatedly, allowing the unambiguous separation of spatial and temporal variability over the Americas.

This research presents the first application of tomographic techniques for investigating gravity wave structures in polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs) imaged by the Cloud Imaging and Particle Size instrument on the NASA AIM satellite. Albedo data comprising consecutive PMC scenes were used to tomographically reconstruct a 3‐D layer using the Partially Constrained Algebraic Reconstruction Technique algorithm and a previously developed “fanning” technique. For this pilot study, a large region (760 × 148 km) of the PMC layer (altitude ~83 km) was sampled with a ~2 km horizontal resolution, and an intensity weighted centroid technique was developed to create novel 2‐D surface maps, characterizing the individual gravity waves as well as their altitude variability. Spectral analysis of seven selected wave events observed during the Northern Hemisphere 2007 PMC season exhibited dominant horizontal wavelengths of ~60–90 km, consistent with previous studies. These tomographic analyses have enabled a broad range of new investigations. For example, a clear spatial anticorrelation was observed between the PMC albedo and wave‐induced altitude changes, with higher‐albedo structures aligning well with wave troughs, while low‐intensity regions aligned with wave crests. This result appears to be consistent with current theories of PMC development in the mesopause region. This new tomographic imaging technique also provides valuable wave amplitude information enabling further mesospheric gravity wave investigations, including quantitative analysis of their hemispheric and interannual characteristics and variations.

The Cloud Imaging and Particle Size (CIPS) instrument has been in operation on the NASA Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) satellite since May 2007. CIPS is a multi-camera UV imager that makes unprecedented hemispheric-scale measurements of polar mesospheric clouds (PMC). The primary CIPS data products are cloud frequency, albedo, mean particle radius, ice water content and vertical column particle density. These quantities are retrieved at 25km2 resolution at latitudes between ~55° and 84° over a range of local times in the summer hemisphere. CIPS has obtained data for six Northern Hemisphere and five Southern Hemisphere PMC seasons to date and is still in operation and performing flawlessly. The CIPS data are made available to the scientific community in a variety of formats and spatial and temporal resolution, including full-resolution single-orbit level 2 data files and images, daily (hemispheric) albedo maps and images, and full-season latitude-binned summary files. In this paper we describe the CIPS measurement strategy and sampling characteristics, calibration and the Version 4.20 processing algorithms and retrievals. We also provide a quantitative evaluation of the CIPS cloud detection sensitivity and estimated random and systematic errors of the V4.20 cloud data products.

The Cloud Imaging and Particle Size (CIPS) experiment is one of three instruments on board the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) spacecraft that was launched into a 600 km sun-synchronous orbit on April 25, 2007. CIPS images have shown distinct wave patterns and structures in Polar Mesospheric Clouds (PMC), around the summertime mesopause region, which are qualitatively similar to structures seen in Noctilucent Clouds (NLC) from ground-based photographs. The structures in PMC are generally considered to be manifestations of upward propagating atmospheric gravity waves (AGW). Variability of AGW effects on PMC reported at several lidar sites has led to the notion of longitudinal differences in this relationship. This study compares the longitudinal variability in the CIPS observed wave occurrence frequency with CIPS measured PMC occurrence frequency and albedo along with mesospheric temperatures measured by the Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry (SABER) instrument on board the Thermosphere-Ionosphere-Mesosphere-Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) spacecraft. Our results for the latitude ranges between 70-80 show a distinct anticorrelation of wave structures with cloud occurrence frequency and correlations with temperature perturbations for at least two of the four seasons analyzed, supporting the idea of gravity wave induced cloud sublimation. The locations of the observed wave events show regions of high wave activity in both hemispheres. In the northern hemisphere, while the longitudinal variability in observed wave structures show changes from the 2007 to 2008 seasons, there exist regions of both low and high wave activity common to the two seasons. These persistent features may explain some of the observed differences in PMC activity reported by ground-based lidar instruments distributed at different longitudes. The statistical distribution of horizontal scales increases with wavelength up to at least 250 km. We also discuss the possibility of atmospheric tides, especially the nonmigrating semidiurnal tide, aliasing our observations and affecting the results presented in this analysis.

The cloud imaging and particle size (CIPS) experiment is one of three instruments on board the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) spacecraft that was launched into a 600 km Sun‐synchronous orbit on 25 April 2007. CIPS images have shown distinct wave patterns and structures in polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs), around the summertime mesopause region, which are qualitatively similar to structures seen in noctilucent clouds (NLCs) from ground‐based photographs. The structures in PMC are generally considered to be manifestations of upward propagating atmospheric gravity waves (AGWs). Variability of AGW effects on PMC reported at several lidar sites has led to the notion of longitudinal differences in this relationship. This study compares the longitudinal variability in the CIPS‐observed wave occurrence frequency with CIPS‐measured PMC occurrence frequency and albedo along with mesospheric temperatures measured by the sounding of the atmosphere using broadband emission radiometry instrument on board the Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics spacecraft. Our results for the latitude ranges between 70° and 80° show a distinct anticorrelation of wave structures with cloud occurrence frequency and correlations with temperature perturbations for at least two of the four seasons analyzed, supporting the idea of gravity wave‐induced cloud sublimation. The locations of the observed wave events show regions of high wave activity in both hemispheres. In the Northern Hemisphere, while the longitudinal variability in observed wave structures show changes from the 2007–2008 seasons, there exist regions of both low and high wave activities common to the two seasons. These persistent features may explain some of the observed differences in PMC activity reported by ground‐based lidar instruments distributed at different longitudes. The statistical distribution of horizontal scales increases with wavelength up to at least 250 km. We also discuss the possibility of atmospheric tides, especially the nonmigrating semidiurnal tide, aliasing our observations and affecting the results presented in this analysis.

The Cloud Imaging and Particle Size Experiment (CIPS) is one of three instruments aboard the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere spacecraft. CIPS provides panoramic ultraviolet images of the atmosphere over a wide range of scattering angles in order to determine the presence of polar mesospheric clouds, measure their spatial morphology, and constrain the parameters of cloud particle size distribution. The AIM science objectives motivate the CIPS measurement approach and drive the instrument requirements and design, leading to a configuration of four wide-angle cameras arrayed in a ‘+’ arrangement that covers a 120° (along orbit track)×80° (across orbit track) field of view. CIPS began routine operations on May 24, 4 weeks after AIM was launched. It measures scattered radiances from PMCs near 83km altitude to derive cloud morphology and particle size information by recording multiple exposures of individual clouds to derive PMC scattering phase functions and detect nadir horizontal spatial scales to approximately 3km. This paper describes the instrument design, its prelaunch characterization and calibration, and flight operations. Flight observations and calibration activities confirm performance inferred during ground test, verifying that CIPS exceeds its measurement requirements and goals. These results are illustrated with example flight images that demonstrate the instrument measurement performance.

The Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) mission was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 4:26:03 EDT on April 25, 2007, becoming the first satellite mission dedicated to the study of noctilucent clouds (NLCs), also known as polar mesospheric clouds (PMC) when viewed from space. We present the first results from one of the three instruments on board the satellite, the Cloud Imaging and Particle Size (CIPS) instrument. CIPS has produced detailed morphology of the Northern 2007 PMC and Southern 2007/2008 seasons with 5 km horizontal spatial resolution. CIPS, with its very large angular field of view, images cloud structures at multiple scattering angles within a narrow spectral bandpass centered at 265 nm. Spatial coverage is 100% above about 70° latitude, where camera views overlap from orbit to orbit, and terminates at about 82°. Spatial coverage decreases to about 50% at the lowest latitudes where data are collected (35°). Cloud structures have for the first time been mapped out over nearly the entire summertime polar region. These structures include 'ice rings', spatially small but bright clouds, and large regions ('ice-free regions') in the heart of the cloud season essentially devoid of ice particles. The ice rings bear a close resemblance to tropospheric convective outflow events, suggesting a point source of mesospheric convection. These rings (often circular arcs) are most likely Type IV NLC ('whirls' in the standard World Meteorological Organization (WMO) nomenclature).

The Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission of opportunity will greatly improve understanding of the Earth's thermosphere and ionosphere through measurements of the global-scale response to external and internal forces. GOLD will fly an UV imager on a geostationary satellite to measure densities and temperatures across almost an entire hemisphere in this poorly understood region of the Earth's upper atmosphere and lower space environment, at altitudes where temperatures are currently not well known. GOLD will provide the first global-scale observations of temperatures in the lower thermosphere (130-180 km), in addition to more familiar measurements such as aurora location and energy input, peak electron densities (NmF2) in the nighttime ionosphere, and atomic oxygen to molecular nitrogen column density ratios (Sigma O/N-2) ratios. GOLD can provide nearly continuous real-time observations of one hemisphere. In addition to measurements on the disk of the Earth, GOLD can provide coincident measurements of molecular oxygen densities and the temperature profile in the lower thermosphere (150-250 km) from stellar occultations as well as exospheric temperatures from limb profiles of molecular nitrogen emissions. GOLD has two identical channels, each capable of all the measurements described. This allows GOLD to provide coincident measurements in any desired combination, e.g., disk temperatures and Sigma O/N-2. Combined with the advanced models now available, measurements from GOLD will revolutionize our understanding of the global-scale response of the thermosphere and ionosphere to geomagnetic and solar forcing. The data and knowledge gained from GOLD will enhance space weather specification and forecasting capabilities.