What does `NO-CARRIER` and `DOWN` mean for a wireless interface?

I have a remote server and I log output of certain commands while the server cannot access the internet.

It uses a wireless interface to connect to the internet.

In a working state the output of ip link list shows:

3: wlan0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state UP mode DORMANT qlen 1000 link/ether 00:13:ef:b0:29:74 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

When it is not working the output of ip link list shows:

3: wlan0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state DOWN mode DORMANT qlen 1000 link/ether 00:13:ef:b0:29:74 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

What does this NO-CARRIER and DOWN mean for a wireless interface? In the case of ethernet, this would mean that the cable is disconnected.

I would also appreciate any advice as to how I can further debug why the connection was not working. I also do a wicd-cli -y -l scan during the outage and it appears that the access point is still broadcasting. I cannot find any other hardware or software errors in the kernel messages.