Speaker
Description
Over the past decade, the collaboration between the National Institute for Space Research (INPE, Brazil) and the National Space Science Center (NSSC, Chinese Academy of Sciences) has significantly advanced the study of the Mesosphere and Lower Thermosphere (MLT) through the operation of the dual-beam sodium and potassium (Na-K) resonance LIDAR at São José dos Campos, Brazil. As the only dual-metal resonance LIDAR currently operating in South America, this unique facility has enabled high-resolution observations of mesospheric Na and K layers, providing new insights into the dynamics, chemistry, and ionized and neutral atmospheric coupling processes in the low-latitude MLT region. This presentation reviews the main scientific achievements of this long-term collaboration, including studies of morphology of these metallic layers, Sporadic Na and K layers, C-structures, mesospheric instabilities, meteoric metal deposition, stratospheric aerosols, and the influence of the South Atlantic Magnetic Anomaly (SAMA) and geomagnetic storms on mesospheric metal layers. The integration of LIDAR observations with meteor radar, ionosonde, all-sky imager, satellite measurements, and numerical modeling has substantially improved our understanding of upper-atmosphere processes over South America. Finally, we discuss future perspectives of the collaboration, including diurnal measurements as well as the application of artificial intelligence for automated meteor trail detection and the investigation of the role of the SAMA in meteor trail evolution and meteoric metal chemistry. These developments represent a natural continuation of ten years of successful scientific cooperation and technological innovation between INPE and NSSC.