Modeled and observed equatorial thermospheric winds and temperatures

The largest magnitude wind observation error is found to be 16.9 m/s, root-mean-square errors are 2.3 m/s, and the bias is 0.9 m/s. The largest-magnitude temperature observation error is found to be 63.7 K, root-mean-square errors over the test period are 6.7 K, and the bias is 2.8 K. Modeled redline emission altitudes vary by over 100 km, far more than was expected. Second, several models (TIEGCM, WACCM-X, the Horizontal Wind Model, and the Mass Spectrometer Incoherent Scatter model) are assessed using interferometer winds and temperatures from Cariri and Cajazeiras, Brazil, as ground truth.

In the best cases, the models reproduce wind variability without systematic biases but show no ability to predict instantaneous values, although temperatures are modeled more accurately.