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Re: (meteorobs) upper winds and meteors
Brian Banicki wrote:
> With most cities with DOPPLER Radar that can show upper winds. Then
> viewing a meteor streek that does a some what streched out z pattern.
> Can this be used to show the altitude or close to it that the Streek
> apeard, or is their something else cause this.
There are upper winds and there are upper winds!
1. When a doppler weather radar senses "upper winds", we are talking
about winds below 15 km altitude.
2. When a meteor "senses" the earth's atmosphere, we are taking
something like 150 km altitude.
3. When you are taking about "upper atmospheric winds" with a scientist
specializing in this area, you can be talking about altitudes in excess
of 400 km.
My understanding (and it could be easily wrong), is that these "CLOs"
are being structurally destroyed in the thinest regions of definition 3
in a manner not easily observed by existing instruments, especially
ground based instruments. As a minimum you need state of the art
narrowband filters (less than one angstrom bandwidth and tuned to a
strong transmission line) and a state of the art optical sensor.
It sounds like the CLOs are difficult to detect by radar because of the
nature of their structure, and at that height, there are few radars
capable of looking at them. Aericbo is one exception. It can image
near earth astoroids, albeit rocks and big rocks compared to CLOs, but
usually at much greater distances. But then Aercibo already nows the
exact orbit of the asteroid, a big advantage.
You can rest assured that everybody is looking at their sensors to
figure out how to detect these things. (I'm cynical, but front page
discoveries are a big advantage to seeking funds and the scientists
really need more funding. I don't think management will pass up a
chance for more visibility if they have a good possiblity of finding
these things no matter what the original mission of that sensor. :-) )
--
John Ohrt, Regina, SK, Canada
johrt@ibmdot net
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