Long-term trends in optical airglow observations in the Canadian high Arctic
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Date
2024-08
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University of New Brunswick
Abstract
The PEARL All-Sky Imager (PASI) is an optical atmospheric imager installed at Eureka, Nunavut, Canada (80N, 86W). PASI is capable of imaging several airglow emissions, though this work is restricted to the sodium doublet (589.3nm), and oxygen green line (557.7nm). Using data from PASI,
this thesis develops the following: a systematic calibration routine and the corresponding calibrated images, and a long-term nightglow trend analysis routine including the comparison between seasonal, diurnal, and solar
cycle-scale nightglow trends at High (80 degrees) and low (32 degrees)
latitudes. This work finds similarities in the seasonal and solar cycle trends, with variations in the sunspot number (SSN) influencing the nightglow brightness on the order of 50%, as well as an SSN dip preceding a brightness dip in winter 2013-2014. This provides further evidence for the circulation of
middle atmospheric constituents, along with an estimate for the lag between solar variation, and nightglow variations.