Two-dimensional wind field observation based on multistatic meteor radars in central and eastern China

All-sky meteor radars have become a reliable and widely used tool for observing horizontal winds in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) region. This provides vital data support for the study of dynamics in this region. Currently, meteor radars mainly operate in single-station observation mode with no horizontal resolution and can only estimate the average horizontal wind field in the meteor region. To obtain more abundant and accurate information about the atmospheric wind field in the MLT region, a multistatic meteor radar system located in Anhui, China was introduced in this study. The radar system consists of a monostatic meteor radar installed in Mengcheng (33.36 °N, 116.49 °E) and a remote receiver installed in Changfeng (31.98 °N, 117.22 °E) at a distance of about 167 km. Compared to the monostatic meteor radar, the multistatic meteor radar system could observe 70% more forward scatter meteor echoes and offer more than 400 km × 400 km horizontal observation area. Moreover, the multistatic meteor radar system provides more abundant viewing angles. This new multistatic system offers the feasibility of retrieving two-dimensional horizontal wind fields and the gradient of horizontal wind as well as estimating the divergence, relative vorticity, stretching and shearing deformation of the horizontal wind field. The multistatic meteor radar system provides more horizontal wind parameters, significantly contributing to the further studies of the atmospheric dynamics process in the MLT region. In addition, multistatic meteor radar observation network upcoming in the future will realize the 3-d wind field with high spatiotemporal resolution in the MLT region above central and eastern China, greatly improving our understanding of the various wave processes in the near space.