This paper is about the acquisition of the temperature profile between 80 and 100 km, in the mesopause region. It is based on the development and improvement of a simple experimental technique that enable to determine the atmospheric temperature using a lidar and the physical properties of the mesospheric sodium. The technique consists in tune the lidar in the D2 line of the sodium (5890 Å) and substitutes the output mirror of the laser by a Fabry-Perot interferometer which has the free-spectral-range of 0.0198 Å, same value of the separation between the hyperfines components of the D2 line. Initially, a temperature controller permits to vary the Fabry-Perot temperature and to do a wavelength sweeping in the hyperfine structure of the sodium. Subsequently, a Fabry-Perot with pressure control enables to change the laser wavelength between the maximun and the minimun of the hyperfine structure. The sodium and the atmospheric temperature, once they are in thermodinamic equilibrium, are deduced from the convolution between the laser spectrum and the sodium resonance profile. Some experiments were realized to verify the validity of the new technique and to provide the temperature profile in the mesopause region. Here are shown the temperature profiles of the days 08/28/95, obtained with the Fabry-Perot controlled by temperature, and 10/17/96, obtained with the Fabry-Perot controlled by pressure.
Atmospheric temperature; Lidar; Mesopause
