The Middle and Upper Atmosphere as Observed by MIPAS/Envisat
Lopez-Puertas, Manuel¹; Funke, Bernd¹; Garcia-Comas, Maya¹; Gardini, Angela¹; Jurado-Navarro, Aythami¹; von Clarmann, Thomas²; Stiller, Gabriele²; Grabowski, Udo²; Glatthor, Norbert²; Hoepfner, Michael²; Kellmann, Sylvia²; Kiefer, Michael²; Linden, Andrea²; Friederich, Felix²; Kaufmann, Martin^3
1IAA-CSIC, SPAIN; ²IMK-ASF, KIT, GERMANY; ³Forschungszentrum Julich, GERMANY

In addition to the nominal routine observations of the lower atmosphere (6-70 km), MIPAS also observed the middle and upper atmosphere using the special modes of Middle Atmosphere (MA, 18-102 Km), Upper Atmosphere (UA, 42-172 Km) and Noctilucent Clouds (NLC, 42-102 Km). Observations in these modes were taken regularly (1 out of 5 days) since mid-2007 until the failure of Envisat in April 2012. The wide spectral range, high spectral resolution and high sensitivity allowed MIPAS to measure many species in these regions including, temperature, and H2O, CH4, N2O, O3, NO2, NO, CO, CO2 and polar mesospheric clouds (PMC) concentrations. The retrievals of these quantities in those regions required, however, a complex retrieval algorithm that needs to incorporate non-(local thermodynamic equilibrium) effects. In this paper we present an overview of the major scientific findings related to these atmospheric regions obtained from the measurements discussed. To mention a few, we plan to cover, the temperature structure (with phenomena like the elevated stratopause and the effects of stratospheric warmings in the thermosphere); the seasonal variation of the O3 secondary maximum; the H2O global distribution; the distribution of CO in the mesosphere and thermosphere; a climatology of thermospheric temperature and NO vmr (day- and night-time); and polar distributions of PMCs in the Northern and Southern summer seasons.