Variations of the neutral temperature and sodium density between 80 and 107 km above Tromsø during the winter of 2010–2011 by a new solid‐state sodium lidar

A new solid-state sodium lidar installed at Ramfjordmoen, TromsO (69.6 degrees N, 19.2 degrees E), started observations of neutral temperature together with sodium density in the mesosphere-lower thermosphere (MLT) region on 1 October 2010. The new lidar provided temperature data with a time resolution of 10 min and with good quality between approximate to 80 and approximate to 105 km from October 2010 to March 2011. This paper aims at introducing the new lidar with its observational results obtained over the first 6 months of observations. We succeeded in obtaining neutral temperature and sodium density data of approximate to 255.5 h in total. In order to evaluate our observations, we compared (1) the sodium density with that published in the literature, (2) average temperature and column sodium density data with those obtained with Arctic Lidar Observatory for Middle Atmosphere Research Weber sodium lidar, and (3) the neutral temperature data with those obtained by Sounding of the Atmosphere with Broadband Emission Radiometry/Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics satellite. For the night of 5 October 2010, we succeeded in conducting simultaneous observations of the new lidar and the European Incoherent Scatter UHF radar with the tristatic Common Program 1 (CP-1) mode. Comparisons of neutral and ion temperatures showed a good agreement at 104 km between 0050 and 0230 UT on 6 October 2010 when the electric field strength was smaller, while significant deviations (up to approximate to 25 K) are found at 107 km. We evaluated contributions of Joule heating and electron-ion heat exchange, but derived values seem to be underestimated.