Article
Inferring the global cosmic dust influx to the Earth’s atmosphere from lidar observations of the vertical flux of mesospheric Na
Journal of Geophysical Research
(2014)
Abstract
Estimates of the global influx of cosmic dust are highly uncertain, ranging from 0.4–110 t/d. All
meteoric debris that enters the Earth’s atmosphere is eventually transported to the surface. The downward
fluxes of meteoric metals like mesospheric Na and Fe, in the region below where they are vaporized and
where the majority of these species are still in atomic form, are equal to their meteoric ablation influxes,
which in turn, are proportional to the total cosmic dust influx. Doppler lidar measurements of mesospheric Na
fluxes made throughout the year at the Starfire Optical Range, New Mexico, (35°N) are combined with the
Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model predictions of the relative geographic variations of the key
wave-induced vertical transport processes to infer the global influxes of Na vapor and cosmic dust. The global 2
mean Na influx is estimated to be 16,100 ± 3200 atoms/cm /s, which corresponds to 278 ± 54 kg/d for the global input of Na vapor and 60 ± 16 t/d for the global influx of cosmic dust.
Keywords
- cosmic dust,
- lidar,
- gravity wave,
- sodium,
- mesosphere,
- vertical flux
Disciplines
Publication Date
August 17, 2014
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/2014JA020383
Citation Information
Chester S. Gardner, Alan Z Liu, Dan Marsh, Wuhu Feng, et al.. "Inferring the global cosmic dust influx to the Earth’s atmosphere from lidar observations of the vertical flux of mesospheric Na" Journal of Geophysical Research Vol. 119 (2014) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/alanliu/59/