Add mission on development progress of Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere.And thus,I interest important devs discoveried for 30-50 N latitudes

 Extended Mission

07.29.20

AIM has been selected for five previous extended missions following the 2-year Explorer baseline mission.  As noted in the 2017 Senior Review (SR) proposal, AIM has evolved to become a global mission. That proposal began capitalizing on this transition with three Prioritized Science Goals (PSGs). PSG-1 examined GW origins, how dynamical variability in the lower atmosphere couples to geospace weather and how extraterrestrial phenomena propagate into the lower atmosphere. PSG-2 studied the roles of solar and anthropogenic forcing on PMCs and the structure of the mesosphere. PSG-3 investigated the geographic and temporal distributions of mid-latitude PMCs and how they are influenced by waves and tides, but this was exploratory in nature due to the low signal-to-noise for PMCs at mid-latitudes. For PSG-1, significant progress was made developing new GW products to identify global GW “hotspots”. For PSG-2 we discovered that surprisingly, the solar cycle in PMCs is weak or absent after ~2004, in stark contrast to predictions and observations of 20 years ago. We suggest that this is due to a reduced solar cycle response in water vapor based on analysis of SOFIE H2O and other satellite measurements. It has also been suggested that this phenomenon is due to a threshold effect whereby the recent solar cycle was too weak to trigger a variation. Either way, this conundrum is a key focus of our 2020 SR research. Finally, for PSG-3 we have begun expanding the CIPS PMC coverage to include mid-latitude NLCs. This effort paid off with CIPS observations of the unusual NLC outbreak in early June 2019 over Colorado and adjoining states. This event received public attention and has considerably increased interest in the question of mid-latitude NLC change. Ongoing studies show that the 2019 NLC ice mass at 30-50°N latitude in the first two weeks of June was the highest since 2002. Large uncertainty remains regarding whether mid-latitude NLCs are increasing or spreading to lower latitudes.