Dataset
University of Bath: Rothera Skiymet Meteor Radar data (2005-present)
Abstract
The University of Bath's meteor radar located at the British Antarctic Survey's Rothera base on Rothera Point, Adelaide Island, Antartica (67.57 S, 68.13 W), is an all-sky VHF (Very High Frequency) meteor radar commercially produced Skiymet system. Meteor detection and derived wind data from this instrument are available from 2005. These were collected in support of a number of research projects - see linked Project records for further details.
The radar detects radio scatter from the ionised trails of individual meteors drifting with the winds of the upper mesosphere, mesopause and lower thermosphere. A low-gain transmitter antenna is used to provide broad illumination of the sky. An array of five receiver antennas act as an interferometer to determine the azimuth and zenith angles of individual meteor echoes. Doppler measurements from each meteor determine the radial drift velocity and the meteor is assumed to be a passive tracer of atmospheric flow. The radar typically detects of order a few thousand meteors per day. These observations can be used to determine zonal and meridional winds in the mesosphere, mesopause and lower thermosphere at heights of about 80 – 100 km and with height and time resolutions of ~ 3 km and 2 hours.
The radar produces daily “meteor position data” data files (mpd files) recording the details of each individual meteor echo. In normal operation a few thousand individual meteors are detected per day. See parameter list for details of available data.
Recordings are made for each individual meteor detected allowing measurements of zonal and meridional wind speeds in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere to be obtained. Meteor count rates vary diurnally and with season, but are usually up to a few thousand meteors per day.
Note - there are additional data from 20040728 in the archive. No other data were obtained between that date and the start date for the dataset (20050212). The start date of 20050212 has been chosen in order to avoid potential confusion about missing data prior to that date.
Details
| Previous Info: |
No news update for this record
|
|---|---|
| Previously used record identifiers: |
No related previous identifiers.
|
| Access rules: |
Access to these data is available to any registered CEDA user. Please Login or Register for a CEDA account to gain access.
Use of these data is covered by the following licence(s): http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/ When using these data you must cite them correctly using the citation given on the CEDA Data Catalogue record. |
| Data lineage: |
Data from the instrument are collected by the British Antarctic Survey and supplied to the Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA) for long-term archiving. |
| Data Quality: |
No quality control information has been provided for these data by the data provider, nor has any been undertaken by the data centre.
|
| File Format: |
Data are ASCII formatted. See linked documentation.
|
Process overview
Instrument/Platform pairings
| University of Bath: Rothera Skiymet Meteor Radar | Deployed on: British Antarctic Survey's Rothera Station |
| Output Description | None |
- long_name: Ambiguity levels in the determined zenith and azimuth angles
- names: Ambiguity levels in the determined zenith and azimuth angles
- long_name: Date and time of the meteor detection
- names: Date and time of the meteor detection
- long_name: Decay time of the meteor echo
- names: Decay time of the meteor echo
- long_name: Height of the meteor echo above the ground
- names: Height of the meteor echo above the ground
- long_name: Mesosphere Air Temperature
- names: Mesosphere Air Temperature
- long_name: Mesosphere Meridional Wind Component
- names: Mesosphere Meridional Wind Component
- long_name: Mesosphere Zonal Wind Component
- names: Mesosphere Zonal Wind Component
- long_name: Meteor echo power and S/N ratio
- names: Meteor echo power and S/N ratio
- long_name: Radial drift velocity of the meteor echo and its uncertainty
- names: Radial drift velocity of the meteor echo and its uncertainty
- long_name: Range to the meteor echo point
- names: Range to the meteor echo point
- long_name: Zenith and azimuth angles of the meteor echo
- names: Zenith and azimuth angles of the meteor echo
Co-ordinate Variables
Temporal Range
2005-02-12T21:37:20
Ongoing
Geographic Extent
-67.5700° |
||
-68.1300° |
-68.1300° |
|
-67.5700° |