The seasonal cycle of gravity wave drag in the middle atmosphere

• Autores: Pulido, Manuel Arturo; Thuburn, John
• Año de publicación: 2008
• Idioma: inglés
• Tipo de recurso: artículo
• Materia: GRAVITY WAVES; WAVES ATMOSPHERIC; MIDDLE ATMOSPHERE; SEASONAL CYCLE; JETS
• Institución: Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas

Using a variational technique, middle atmosphere gravity wave drag (GWD) is estimated from Met Office middle atmosphere analyses for the year 2002. The technique employs an adjoint model of a middle atmosphere dynamical model to minimize a cost function that measures the differences between the model state and observations. The control variables are solely the horizontal components of GWD; therefore, the minimization determines the optimal estimate of the drag. For each month, Met Office analyses are taken as the initial condition for the first day of the month, and also as observations for each successive day. In this way a three-dimensional GWD field is obtained for the entire year with a temporal resolution of 1 day. GWD shows a pronounced seasonal cycle. During solstices, there are deceleration regions of the polar jet centered at about 63° latitude in the winter hemisphere, with a peak of 49 m s-1 day-1 at 0.24 hPa in the Southern Hemisphere; the summer hemisphere also shows a deceleration region but much weaker, with a peak of 24 m s-1 day-1 centered at 45° latitude and 0.6 hPa. During equinoxes GWD is weak and exhibits a smooth transition between the winter and summer situation. The height and latitude of the deceleration center in both winter and summer hemispheres appear to be constant. Important longitudinal dependencies in GWD are found that are related to planetary wave activity; GWD intensifies in the exit region of jet streaks. In the lower tropical stratosphere, the estimated GWD shows a westward GWD descending together with the westward phase of the quasi-biennial oscillation. Above, GWD exhibits a semiannual pattern that is approximately out of phase with the semiannual oscillation in the zonal wind. Furthermore, a descending GWD pattern is found at those heights, similar in magnitude and sign to that in the lower stratosphere.
Fil: Pulido, Manuel Arturo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Nordeste. Instituto de Modelado e Innovación Tecnológica. Universidad Nacional del Nordeste. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Naturales y Agrimensura. Instituto de Modelado e Innovación Tecnologica; Argentina
Fil: Thuburn, John. University of Exeter. School of Engineering, Computing Science and Mathematics; Reino Unido