Through climatological studies of the mesospheric wind latitudinal variation, the investigator clarifies wave activity coupling from the tropopause to the mesosphere, and differential forcing of the mesosphere by gravity waves. She uses one year worth of data, collected from a chain of medium frequency radars spanning sub-tropical and mid-latitude regions. Her comprehensive study compares the climatological variability of mesospheric wave activity at each station in the latitude chain. These compares provide quantitative measures of the latitudinal variation of wave activity. Simple models, assessed for their accurate reproduction of the mesospheric wave activity's characteristics, incorporate wave propagation, saturation and critical layer filtering. Thorsen is aiding future modeling efforts, by clarifying the dominant mechanisms controlling wind variance (when observed by radar).
