Turbulence is a phenomenon that’s familiar to anyone who’s ever flown in an airplane, but those moguls of air and pressure do not affect only airlines.
Each bump and jolt one feels while traveling in the sky is a result of multiple factors, including giant swirls (which scientists refer to as “vortices”), shifting winds (“shears”) or other patterns of air movement.
The overall “vorticity” of the sky just above us — in other words, the overall turbulence — also impacts our upper atmosphere, where the fringes of earth’s influence touches against space.
That’s according to a team of Clemson researchers, which has recently launched rockets to determine exactly how turbulence impacts the upper atmosphere.
The Vorticity Experiment, or VortEx for short, launched two sounding rockets into the mesosphere (about 31 to 53 miles above us) and lower thermosphere (53 to 375 miles above us) to track the patterns of the turbulence in more detail.
“It’s fundamental research to understand the weather patterns at these heights,” said Gerald Lehmacher, an associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and principal investigator for the VortEx mission. “In the broadest sense, this experiment is about learning about the fate of buoyancy waves at the edge of space.”
The rockets, which were launched from the Andoya Space Center in Norway on March 23, tracked the interplay between solar storm events, which are guided by the earth’s magnetic field, and upper-altitude winds and waves.
Beyond satisfying scientific curiosity, the research has broad practical applications. Understanding the role of vortices and shears on solar weather can allow scientists to better adapt satellite technology to withstand solar storms, which remain difficult to predict.
Both rockets were launched successfully, with the first reaching a height of 149 kilometers and the second reaching 363 kilometers. The rockets then dispensed tracers higher into the atmosphere, which resembled illuminated fireworks visible from the ground. These tracers were naturally swept apart and distorted by the high-altitude winds, which is one way researchers can track the intricacies of the air patterns so high above us.
Researchers are now analyzing the data.
“Ultimately, the goal is to better understand and forecast the atmosphere in these regions,” Lehmacher said.
