Observation of mesosphere winds and turbulence with smoke trails

A number of methods are available for studying atmospheric dynamics in the 30- to 80-km region. They include the falling sphere, the metalized parachute, falling metalized chaff, and the grenade sound-ranging technique. A comparison of the first three methods was made by Jenkins [1962], and a review of the fourth was made by Groves [1966]. None of these methods is, however, readily applicable to the study of small scale (<1 km) wind structure, turbulence, and eddy diffusion, because features of this scale are either smoothed out completely or at the least their amplitude is reduced.