TRENT UNIVERSITY WINDII PROJECT

Atmospheric Research Under The Direction of Dr. W. F. J. Evans

What Is WINDII?

The WIND imaging interferometer (WINDII) was launched on the Upper Atmosphere Research Satelite (UARS) on September 10, 1991, This joint project, sponsered by the Canadian Space Agency and the French Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, in collaboration with NASA, has the responsibility of measuring the global wind pattern at the top of the altitude range covered by UARS. WINDII measures wind, temperature and emission rate over the altitude range 80 to 300 km by using the visible region airglow emission from these altitudes as a target and employing optical Doppler interferometry to measure the small wavelength shifts of the narrow atomic and molecular airglow emission lines induced by the bulk velocity of the atmosphere carrying and thermally compensated phasestepping Michelson interferometer, along with a bare CCD detector that images the airglow limb through the interferometer.

Stratoglow

The WINDII instrument was used to view the stratosphere in January and July, 1994. The corresponding WINDII images have shown the presence of a red glow in the stratosphere. This "stratoglow" is a result of ozone reacting with nitric oxide to produce excited nitrogen dioxide.

WINDII Archives

[X] The WINDII Ftp Service

[X] The IDL Programming Language

Other WWW Services

[X] Trent University Home Page

Other Information sources about and for WWW.

acknowledgments