The mesosphere influences, and is influenced by, in-situ and external effects such as atmospheric waves and tides (upward) and space weather effects (downward). The mesosphere is strongly coupled to the lower edge of the ionosphere, as well as the other atmospheric regions, so changes in one part can impact on others. In order to make progress in modelling the whole atmosphere as a coupled system, need to have a sound scientific understanding of the drivers of variability.

This project combined newly-available middle atmosphere observations with one of the world most sophisticated whole atmosphere models to quantify the drivers and variability of the mesosphere; providing a first step towards improving predictability of the mesosphere at sub-seasonal to decadal timescales. This project used the Specified Dynamics version of the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM) with D-region ionic chemistry, and data from the EISCAT 3D ionospheric radar.

This project was led by British Antarctic Survey (BAS) scientists under Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) project MesoS2D (grant reference: NE/V018426/1).