A region of thermal enhancement of the mesosphere has been detected on numerous occasions by in situ measurements, remote sensing from space, and lidar techniques. The source of these ''temperature inversion layers'' has been attributed in the literature to the dissipation relating to dynamical forcing by gravity wave or tidal activity. However, the conclusion that the dynamics of the mesopause region is the principal source for such anomalies is open to question. While it is certain that the dynamics of gravity wave breaking plays an important role in providing the source of momentum flux required to drive the diabatic circulation, evidence that gravity wave breaking can produce the inversion layer with amplitude as large as that observed in lidar measurements has been limited to results of numerical modeling. We note that an alternative source exists for the production of the thermal inversion layer in the mesosphere, i.e., the direct deposition of heat by exothermic chemical reactions. Two-dimensional modeling combining a comprehensive model of the mesosphere photochemistry with the dynamical transport of long-lived species shows that the region from 80 to 95 km may be heated as much as 3 to 10 K/d during the night and half this rate during the day. Given the uncertainties in our understanding of the dynamics and chemistry for the mesopause region, separating the two sources by passive observations of the mesosphere thermal structure looks to be difficult.

Therefore we have considered an active means for producing a mesopause thermal layer, namely the release of ozone into the upper mesosphere from a rocket payload. The induced effects would include artificial enhancements of the OH and Na airglow intensities as well as the mesopause thermal structure. The advantage of the rocket release of ozone is that detection of these effects by ground-based imaging, radar, and lidar systems and comparison of these effects with model predictions would help quantify the partition of the aritifical inversion layer production into sources of dynamical and chemical forcing. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1995