Bright polar mesospheric clouds formed by main engine exhaust from the space shuttle's final launch
Journal article, 2012

The space shuttle launched for the last time on 8 July 2011. As with most shuttle launches, the three main engines injected about 350 t of water vapor between 100 and 115 km off the east coast of the United States during its ascent to orbit. We follow the motion of this exhaust with a variety of satellite and ground-based data sets and find that (1) the shuttle water vapor plume spread out horizontally in all directions over a distance of 3000 to 4000 km in 18 h, (2) a portion of the plume reached northern Europe in 21 h to form polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs) that are brighter than over 99% of all PMCs observed in that region, and (3) the observed altitude dependence of the particle size is reversed with larger particles above smaller particles. We use a one- dimensional cloud formation model initialized with predictions of a plume diffusion model to simulate the unusually bright PMCs. We find that eddy mixing can move the plume water vapor down to the mesopause near 90 km where ice particles can form. If the eddy diffusion coefficient is 400 to 1000 m(2)/s, the predicted integrated cloud brightness is in agreement with both satellite and ground-based observations of the shuttle PMCs. The propellant mass of the shuttle is about 20% of that from all vehicles launched during the northern 2011 PMC season. We suggest that the brightest PMC population near 70 degrees N is formed by space traffic exhaust.

design

odin satellite

instrument

ice

water-vapor

nlc

art.

Author

M. H. Stevens

Naval Research Laboratory

Stefan Lossow

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)

Chalmers, Earth and Space Sciences, Global Environmental Measurements and Modelling

J. Fiedler

German Aerospace Center (DLR)

G. Baumgarten

German Aerospace Center (DLR)

F. J. Lubken

German Aerospace Center (DLR)

K. Hallgren

Max Planck Society

Chalmers, Earth and Space Sciences

P. Hartogh

Max Planck Society

C. E. Randall

University of Colorado at Boulder

J. Lumpe

S. M. Bailey

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

R. Niciejewski

University of Michigan

R. R. Meier

George Mason University

J. M. C. Plane

University of Leeds

A. J. Kochenash

Computational Physics Inc.

Donal Murtagh

Chalmers, Earth and Space Sciences, Global Environmental Measurements and Modelling

C. R. Englert

Naval Research Laboratory

Journal of Geophysical Research

01480227 (ISSN) 21562202 (eISSN)

Vol. 117 19 Art. no. D19206- D19206

Subject Categories

Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences

DOI

10.1029/2012JD017638

More information

Latest update

3/19/2019