Identification

Title

Local mean state changes due to gravity wave breaking modulated by the diurnal tide

Abstract

During gravity wave breaking, heating rates are determined by wave advection, turbulent diffusion, and turbulence dissipative heating. A series of numerical experiments show that the total heating rates can be larg (~ ±10 Kh⁻¹) and can cause large local temperature changes. The wave advection causes dynamical cooling in most of the wave breaking region, consistent with previous studies. Nonuniform vertical turbulent diffusion causes strong transient heating in the lower part of the wave breaking region and cooling above. The dissipative heating rate is relatively small compared with those due to the dynamical cooling and turbulent diffusion. In these numerical experiments, zonal wind and temperature perturbations of the diurnal tide and the zonal mean zonal wind and temperature compose the background state for the computation. This is used to examine the idea that temperature inversions, often observed in the mesosphere, are related to the gravity wave and tidal wave interactions. The simulation results show that the large temperature changes in this process can form temperature inversion layers that progress downward with a speed similar to that of a diurnal tide phase speed, which clearly suggests the tidal modulation of the gravity wave and mean flow interactions. Such a process is dependent on season and latitude, because the background state stability varies with season and latitude. The development of the temperature inversion is also affected by the gravity wave characteristics. It is also shown that the local mean wind, wind shear, and chemical species can undergo large changes accompanying the temperature inversion.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7s75h17

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

2000-05-01T00:00:00Z

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