Identification

Title

Characteristics of small‐scale gravity waves in the Arctic winter mesosphere

Abstract

Observational data sets in the polar middle atmosphere are extremely valuable for understanding the polar dynamics and coupling between lower and middle atmosphere. Using the long-term data sets observed with an OH all-sky imager, a Fabry-Perot Interferometer at Resolute Bay Observatory, Canada (74.7 degrees N, 94.9 degrees W), Microwave Limb Sounder and reanalysis data, we study the characteristics of small-scale gravity waves (GWs) with the horizontal wavelength less than 20 km in the Arctic winter mesosphere during 2014-2016. Most GWs propagate nearly against the mesospheric and stratospheric winds, consistent with the wind filtering theory. A small amount (7 of 36 cases) of small-scale GWs in large regions (area >1/2 of the whole image) propagate nearly westward with slower phase speeds, larger horizontal wavelengths, and longer periods than those in limited regions. We also find that multiple GWs with different propagating directions can sometimes occur simultaneously. This is likely due to different wave sources and/or the ducted region in the atmosphere. The observed small-scale GWs may also likely be excited in the mesopause region, such as secondary wave generated by primary wave breaking or a result of baroclinic instability processed in the stratosphere and the interaction of planetary waves with the background winds. In addition, almost all of the small-scale GWs occurred during the strong El Nino and anomalous quasi-biennial oscillation events in 2015/2016 winter.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7mg7srk

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

2020-06-09T00:00:00Z

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