ARS Advances in Radio Science ARS Adv. Radio Sci. 1684-9973 Copernicus Publications Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/ars-4-351-2006 Long-period upper mesosphere temperature and plasma scale height variations derived from VHF meteor radar and LF absolute reflection height measurements Jacobi C. 1 Kürschner D. 2 Institute for Meteorology, University of Leipzig, Stephanstr. 3, 04103 Leipzig, Germany Institute of Geophysics and Geology, University of Leipzig, Collm Observatory, 04779 Wermsdorf, Germany 06 09 2006 4 351 355 Copyright: © 2006 C. Jacobi 2006 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Generic License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ This article is available from https://ars.copernicus.org/articles/4/351/2006/ars-4-351-2006.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://ars.copernicus.org/articles/4/351/2006/ars-4-351-2006.pdf

The change of ionospheric absolute reflection heights h of low-frequency (LF) radio waves at oblique incidence in the course of the day is measured at Collm Observatory (51.3° N, 13.0° E) using 1.8 kHz sideband phase comparisons between the sky-wave and the ground wave of a commercial 177 kHz transmitter (Zehlendorf, reflection point at 52.1° N, 13.2° E). Plasma scale height estimates H are calculated from the decrease/increase of h in the morning/evening. The day-to-day variations of H are compared with those of daily mean temperatures at 90 km, measured with a VHF meteor radar (36.2 MHz) at Collm and using the amplitude decay of meteor reflections. A good qualitative correspondence is found between the two data sets. Since mesospheric long-period temperature variations are generally accepted to be the signature of atmospheric planetary waves, this shows that LF reflection height measurements can be used for monitoring the dynamics of the upper middle atmosphere.