A comparative study of mesospheric zonal wind observations from Na lidar and multistatic meteor radars above Hefei, China

Abstract. This study compares zonal wind measurements from a Na lidar at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) with those from the multistatic meteor radar system near Hefei, China. The meteor radar data used for comparison with the lidar include three sources: Mengcheng Meteor Radar (MCMR), Changfeng remote Receiver (CFR), and wind derived closer to the lidar beam using the Volume Velocity Processing (VVP) method. About 300 h of simultaneous, coincident observations from meteor radars and a Na lidar over 34 nights during 2022–2023, covering altitudes from 82 to 98 km, were analyzed. The parameters of zonal wind between lidar and meteor radar such as correlation coefficients, zonal wind mean, variance and zonal wind different are presented. Both monostatic meteor radar (MCMR and CFR) and multistatic meteor radars (VVP) zonal winds show good consistency with lidar zonal winds. Compared with monostatic radars, VVP zonal winds exhibit better agreement with the lidar above 90 km, both in zonal wind variance and radar-to-lidar zonal wind ratio. These results demonstrate that the VVP method provides a reliable approach for retrieving meteor radar winds and can improve wind estimates in the 90–98 km region.