Identification

Title

A study of the nonlinear response of the upper atmosphere to episodic and stochastic acoustic-gravity wave forcing

Abstract

Perturbations caused by geophysical and anthropogenic events on the ground have been observed to propagate upward and impact the upper atmosphere. Gravity waves with wavelengths less than 750km are known to be responsible for the total electron content (TEC) perturbations and to play a significant role in the mass, momentum, and energy budgets of the mesosphere and lower thermosphere. These waves are, however, difficult to continuously measure, globally resolve, and deterministically specify in first-principle ionosphere-thermosphere (IT) models. In this study, we investigate IT response to induced acoustic-gravity waves resulting from strong time-varying lower atmospheric wave forcing, including a traveling wave packet (TWP) and stochastic gravity wave (SGW) fields using the nonlinear Global Ionosphere Thermosphere Model (GITM) with high-resolution grids of 0.08 degrees in longitude and latitude. When TWP and SGW forcing occurs concurrently, the induced gravity waves (GWs) cause variation of 8.8% in neutral, 6.2% in electron density, and 1.5% in TEC. The magnitudes decrease by 2.4% (from 8.8% to +/- 6.4%) with the SGW effects simulated separately and subtracted; importantly, interactions between TWP and SGW contribute to +/- 1.4% of the perturbations. On the other hand, the induced acoustic waves (AWs) cause variation of +/- 13.9% in neutral, +/- 2.1% in electron density, and +/- 0.4% in TEC. Furthermore, GWs sustain tens of minutes after the TWP has passed through the lower atmosphere and clear traveling ionospheric disturbances and traveling atmospheric disturbances are developed. We demonstrate that clear wave structures from an episodic event can be isolated even under a ubiquitously and overwhelmingly perturbed atmosphere.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7f191h2

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2017-01-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact