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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Astron. Space Sci.
Sec. Space Physics
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fspas.2025.1537077
Slightly-deformed clouds of enhanced mesospheric sodium and potassium concentration over the SAMA region: a case study
Provisionally accepted
ANGELA SANTOS 1,2,3*
G. Yang 1
Alexandre Alvares Pimenta 2
Vania Fatima Andrioli 2
PAULO BATISTA 2
Christiano Garnett Marques Brum 4
Laysa Resende 1,2,3 Ronan Arraes 2 Inez Staciarini Batista 2
Ligia Alves Da Silva 1,2,3
Juliano Moro 1,2,3 Maria Paulete 2 José A H Sobral 2 Jonas Souza 2
Mangalathayil A. Abdu 2
Chi Wang 1
Hui Li 1 Z. Liu 1- 1 State Key Laboratory of Space Weather, National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- 2 National Institute of Space Research (INPE), São José dos Campos, São Paulo, Brazil
- 3 China-Brazil Joint Laboratory for Space Weather, NSSC/INPE, São José dos Campos, São Paulo, Brazil
- 4 Florida Space Institute /University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, United States
This work investigates a slightly-deformed cloud of enhanced mesospheric sodium (Na) and potassium (K) layers registered on June 24 2023 by the dual-beam Na/K LIDAR system operating over the low-latitude sector of São José dos Campos - Brazil (23.1°S; 45.9°W), a region under the influence of the South Atlantic Magnetic Anomaly (SAMA). In this event, these peculiar metal clouds presented a strong and quick intensification with a vertical extension of ~ 4 km and a duration of only a few minutes. Such a record of the metal layers is rare and presents unique characteristics since it seems to be the Na and K cloud that precedes the C-structures. This suggests that, unlike previous observations over the Brazilian sector, the slightly deformed clouds of metal are formed above the line of the sight of the LIDAR, which makes this event quite rare and intriguing to stu
Keywords: Na and K layer, Es layer, Tidal wind, Sama, energetic particle precipitation
Received: 29 Nov 2024; Accepted: 06 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 SANTOS, Yang, Alvares Pimenta, Andrioli, BATISTA, Garnett Marques Brum, Resende, Arraes, Batista, Da Silva, Moro, Paulete, Sobral, Souza, Abdu, Wang, Li and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
ANGELA SANTOS, State Key Laboratory of Space Weather, National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
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