The upper atmosphere depart significantly from radiative equilibrium and have a circulation and thermal structure that appear to be mostly due to forcing by small-scale gravity wave motion. Although this region of the atmosphere exhibits a large number of interesting aeronomical phenomena, it is the least understood region of the earth's atmosphere. Detailed studies of chemical and dynamical coupling in the upper atmosphere and lower thermosphere thus have been identified as one major component of the NSF CEDAR program. Gravity wave parameters are useful for understanding the dynamics in this region. A collection of various CEDAR instruments such as lidar, optical, and radar systems, is required in order to improve our knowledge of gravity waves and turbulence field. Such a collection, including the PIs' airglow spectrometer, participated in a CEDAR supported campaign, Airborne Lidar and Observations of the Hawaiian Airglow (ALOHA), which was successfully conducted in March and April of 1990. The participating experiments included groundbased airglow imagers and interferometers at Haleaukala Observatory, SAD and meteor radars at Christmas Island, a Na temperature lidar and meteor radar in Colorado, and airglow spectrometers onboard the NCAR Electra along with a Na lidar. This proposal requests support to analyze the data obtained by the Michigan airglow spectrometer onboard the Electra and to interpret the airglow results with additional information from those obtained by the other instruments.
