Variations of the meteor echo heights at Beijing and Mohe, China

Libo Liu, Huixin Liu, Yiding Chen, Huijun Le, Yang Yi Sun, Baiqi Ning, Lianhuan Hu, Weixing Wan

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

19 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Detecting the changing of the upper atmosphere is an important and challenging issue. The change in the meteor peak heights observed by a meteor radar should contain information of the neutral density in the meteoroid ablation region. In this work, observations from the VHF all-sky meteor radars operated at Beijing (40.3°N, 116.2°E) and Mohe (53.5°N, 122.3°E), China, are collected to explore the temporal patterns of the meteor peak heights. The daily meteor peak height is determined through a least squares fitting of the height profile of meteor radar echoes under a normal distribution assumption. There are considerable seasonal variations in the meteor peak heights, being dominated by an annual component at Beijing and a semiannual one at Mohe. Moreover, the Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (EEMD) is employed to determine the overall trends in the series of the meteor peak heights. The EEMD analysis reveals an overall decrease in the meteor peak heights at both stations, indicating the descending trend in neutral density near 90 km altitude at middle latitudes. The meteor peak heights show a rather weak solar activity effect at Beijing, which is different from the positive effects reported at some other sites.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1117-1127
Number of pages11
JournalJournal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics
Volume122
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jan 1 2017

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Space and Planetary Science
  • Geophysics

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