A comparison of winds measured by meteor radar systems and an MF radar at Buckland Park

Abstract

This paper describes a comparison of winds measured by the meteor echo detection and collection (MEDAC) system and a collocated spaced antenna MF radar at the Buckland Park field station near Adelaide, Australia (35°S, 138°E). A previous paper has described a detailed comparison between the MEDAC and Adelaide meteor radar system which was also operated during the campaign. In this paper, which uses only hand-classified underdense meteor echoes, the meteor horizontal zonal wind velocities were compared to the those produced by the MF spaced antenna system. Care was taken when interpreting the comparison results in light of the varying meteor data rates. A point-to-point comparison showed that the excursions seen in the meteor data tended to be larger than those in the MF data. Excellent agreement was found between the two systems and relevant model results across the observed heights for both the mean winds and tides.