Retrieval of sodium number density profiles in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere from SCIAMACHY limb emission measurements

The AFOSR and the EOARD for the financial support of the project granted by grant no. FA8655-09-1-3012. SCIAMACHY is jointly funded by Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. This work was in part supported by the University of Bremen and Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University of Greifswald. SCIAMACHY data were kindly provided by the European Space Agency (ESA). We would also like to thank ESA, as a part of the work was funded through the ESA MesosphEO project. Ulf-Peter Hoppe and Tim Dunker are grateful to the Research Council of Norway for funding the Na lidar measurements at ALOMAR through grants 208020/F50 and 216870/F50. For the maintenance and operation of the ALOMAR Na lidar we also wish to thank the National Science Foundation (NSF) for Financial support through grant NSF AGS-1136269.