Lower Thermospheric Material Transport via Lagrangian Coherent Structures.

We show that inter-model variation due to under-constraint by observations impacts the ability to predict material transport in the lower thermosphere. Lagrangian coherent structures (LCSs), indicating regions of maximal separation (or convergence) in a time-varying flow, are derived in the lower thermosphere from models for several space shuttle water vapor plume events. We find that inter-model differences in thermospheric transport manifest in LCSs in a way that is more stringent than mean wind analyses.