Gravity Wave Global Distributions from Three Satellite Infrared Limb Scanners During August

We compare global distributions of gravity waves (GWs) measured by three different instruments, UARS/CLAES, CRISTA and TIMED/SABER, in the month of August in different years (1992, 1997, 2002-2004, respectively) spanning a decade. We will discuss common features, such as convectively generated GWs above the Gulf of Mexico and the Kuro-Shio stream as well as strong GW activity on the edge of the southern hemisphere (SH) polar vortex. CRISTA and SABER data reach far into the mesosphere. This enables us to study the development of the global GW distributions with altitude. The convective regions can be clearly identified up to the lower mesosphere. The southern polar vortex maximum reaches up to 70km and stalls above. Instead, we observe above 70km a maximum located in the SH subtropics. We will discuss these observations considering effects of wave visibility, wave breaking, and slant wave propagation.