Atmospheric gravity waves with small vertical-to-horizotal wavelength ratios
Abstract
Gravity wave modes with small vertical-to-horizontal wavelength ratios of an order of 10-3 are investigated through the systematic scale analysis of governing equations for gravity wave perturbations embedded in the quasi-geostrophic large-scale flow. These waves can be categorized as acoustic gravity wave modes because their total energy is given by the sum of kinetic, potential, and elastic parts. It is found that these waves can be forced by density fluctuations multiplied by the horizontal gradients of the large-scale pressure (geopotential) fields. These theoretical findings are evaluated using the results of a high-resolution global model (Specified Chemistry WACCM with horizontal resolution of 25 km and vertical resolution of 600 m) by computing the density-related gravity-wave forcing terms from the modeling results.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2017
- Bibcode:
- 2017AGUFMSA33A2583S
- Keywords:
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- 3334 Middle atmosphere dynamics;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES;
- 3369 Thermospheric dynamics;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES;
- 3384 Acoustic-gravity waves;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES;
- 2427 Ionosphere/atmosphere interactions;
- IONOSPHERE