At H + 2 minutes (1110Z), the sun was 2 degrees west of north from the Boxer, 15 degrees above the
equatorial plane.
A simple section through the poles in Figure 4 shows how cloud position is determined to be
at 1470-km altitude and 2250-km range.
debris cloud.
This implies that an average southerly wind of 6750 kph moved the
This motion is in general agreement with the expected direction for this global and solar posi-
tion in Church's pattern, and the speed is of correct order of magnitude.
The altitude is double the 2-minute
cloud height from Bell's sketch but, under entirely different atmospheric conditions of low-altitude atomic tests,
many ring clouds eventually reach twice their 2-minute height.
Elevation angle of the cloud is the main source
of error; other parameters have less effect on resulting wind speed and altitude.
Even so, varying the observed
elevation angle + 10 degrees changes the inferred speed and altitude by less than 30 percent, as shown in
Figure 5,
References
1.
2.
Church, H. W., 1961: Effects of large diurnal density changes on outer atmosphere circulation.
submitted to J, Meteor.
Priester, W., H. A. Martin and K, Kramp, 1960:
atmosphere,
To be
Diurnal and seasonal density variations in the upper
Nature, 188, 202,
3,
Steiger, W. R., and S. Matsushita, 1960: Photographs of the high-altitude nuclear explosion 'Teak."
4,
Chapman, S.,
48
J. Geophys. Research, 65, 545.
1940:
Geomagnetism, Vol. 1, Oxford, Clarendon Press,
100.