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    What Are Gravity Waves?

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    Shreyas More
    Gravity waves are buoyancy waves that involve the vertical displacement of air parcels along slanted paths. They are ubiquitous throughout the atmosphere and can propagate both vertically and horizontally. Gravity waves transport momentum from their source regions to where they dissipate and break. The breaking of gravity waves causes mixing in the atmosphere and is an important process in atmospheric circulation models. Sources of gravity waves include airflow over mountains, convection, and jet streams.

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    What Are Gravity Waves?

    Uploaded by

    Shreyas More
    42 views30 pages
    Gravity waves are buoyancy waves that involve the vertical displacement of air parcels along slanted paths. They are ubiquitous throughout the atmosphere and can propagate both vertically and horizontally. Gravity waves transport momentum from their source regions to where they dissipate and break. The breaking of gravity waves causes mixing in the atmosphere and is an important process in atmospheric circulation models. Sources of gravity waves include airflow over mountains, convection, and jet streams.

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    Gravity Waves

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    Gravity waves are buoyancy waves that involve the vertical displacement of air parcels along slanted paths. They are ubiquitous throughout the atmosphere and can propagate both vertically and horizontally. Gravity waves transport momentum from their source regions to where they dissipate and break. The breaking of gravity waves causes mixing in the atmosphere and is an important process in atmospheric circulation models. Sources of gravity waves include airflow over mountains, convection, and jet streams.

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    42 views30 pages

    What Are Gravity Waves?

    Uploaded by

    Shreyas More
    Gravity waves are buoyancy waves that involve the vertical displacement of air parcels along slanted paths. They are ubiquitous throughout the atmosphere and can propagate both vertically and horizontally. Gravity waves transport momentum from their source regions to where they dissipate and break. The breaking of gravity waves causes mixing in the atmosphere and is an important process in atmospheric circulation models. Sources of gravity waves include airflow over mountains, convection, and jet streams.

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    What are Gravity Waves?

    Gravity waves are buoyancy waves the restoring force comes from Archimedess principle. They involve vertical displacement of air parcels, along slanted paths The waves are transverse with temperature and wind pertubations, T and w being the two free parameters that oscillate for a freely propagating wave They are found everywhere in the atmosphere They can propagate vertically and horizontally, transporting momentum from their source to their sink Global circulation models use GW parameterization schemes to represent GW transfer of momentum major source of controversy

    Atmospheric Gravity Waves


    Ubiquitous

    Small scale Wavelengths : tens to thousands km Periods: mins to hrs

    PMCs display complicated structure most likely caused by GW activity

    Billows

    Bands

    Timo Leponiemi, 2001

    Multiple GW Sources
    Flow over a mountain range Flow over convective cloud (moving mountain) Kelvin-Helmholtz instability around the jet stream Geostrophic adjustment

    Calculated wave patterns over a two-dimensional ridge

    Gaussian-shaped ridge, width 1 km

    Gaussian-shaped ridge, width 100 km

    From Carmen J. Nappo, Atmospheric Gravity Waves, Academic Press

    Breaking mountain waves 11 May 2000


    Vertical wind measured by Egrett G520T aircraft

    Propagating gravity waves


    Buoyancy waves where air parcels oscillate along slant paths

    H Group velocity z

    v Phase velocity x

    Group and phase velocity


    Individual phase fronts propagate perpendicular to themselves as normal

    TIME

    GROUP of waves propagates ALONG phase lines

    Typical GW properties
    Frequencies greater than N (Brunt-Vaisala frequency) and less than f (Coriolis parameter: periods ~ 5 min ~ 1 day Typical vertical wavelength in mesosphere: 2-3 km to 30 km Mountain waves have CgH = 0 xed w.r.t ground Waves propagate vertically into the stratosphere and mesosphere Wave amplitudes vary as -: density decreases so waves grow in amplitude with height Waves can be ltered and dissipated by stratospheric wind system as a result of critical layer interactions when phase speed matches background wind speed

    Inertia-gravity waves
    Long-period gravity waves, affected by Earths rotation. Frequency ~ f (2sin corr to T ~ 16 hours at 50N) Horizontal Wavelength > 100 km Vertical wavelength ~2 km Wind vector rotates elliptically with time or ht. Wave packet = ? km Path traced by wind vector over time Phase velocity Group velocity z

    Phase front

    Why do we care about GWs?


    They transport momentum vertically. This momentum transfer is crucial to the large-scale momentum balance of the stratosphere and mesosphere They break, causing mixing of air from different origins. Quantifying the inuence of GWs is important for simulations of climate change scenarios.

    Mathematical theory of gravity waves


    The basic equations of atmospheric dynamics are the three momentum equations, the continuity equation, the thermodynamic energy equation and the equation of state for air. They are nonlinear. Gravity wave theories start by postulating some background state of the atmosphere, and introducing small departures from the background state. This is a standard technique in mathematical physics for linearising the equations. The linear equations have harmonic solutions: expi(kx-t) Actual gravity waves can be represented as superpositions of these harmonic solutions

    Properties of harmonic solutions 1


    Dispersion equation for short-period waves Dispersion equation for inertia-gravity waves
    !2 =
    !2 =

    N 2 (k 2 + ! 2 ) (k 2 + ! 2 + m 2 )
    f 2 m2 + N 2 (k 2 + ! 2 ) (k 2 + ! 2 + m2 )

    Where k, and m are the wavenumbers in the x, y and z directions, N is the Brunt-Vaisala frequency and f the Coriolis parameter Plane of oscillation of air parcels = Ncos

    Properties of harmonic solutions 2


    In an atmosphere with a background wind U, the wave frequency is replaced by the intrinsic frequency in the dispersion equation: = - kU As the wave propagates up in the atmosphere remains constant (by denition) so if U changes the intrinsic frequency must change. Thus the horizontal and vertical wavelengths, which are related to , also change. In the extreme case, can become zero. No gravity wave solutions can exist in this case. A level where =0 is called a critical level in practice waves tend to break just below it.

    Gravity wave spectra


    The standard mathematical solutions to the perturbation equations are not gravity waves the functions are dened for all values of x, y, z and t. Real waves are always localised in space and time. They must therefore be composed of groups of monochromatic waves (Fourier theory). Fourier analysis can be used to decompose observed gravity waves to a spectrum of monochromatic components. These spectra are the subject of considerable attention in the literature.

    Observed spectra from aircraft measurements shown earlier Log-averaged vertical wind kinetic energy spectral densities for each level measured in a frame of reference relative to air. Slanted grey lines show 1 , 5 /3, 2 and 3 power law dependencies.
    T. Duck and J. A. Whiteway, The spectrum of waves and turbulence at the tropopause, Geophysical Research Letters, 32, L07801, 2005

    Breaking gravity waves


    Gravity waves break through setting up either convective or shear instability. This can happen either through growth of the wave amplitude with height or through reduction of the vertical wavelength by Doppler-shifting. The instabilities generate turbulence and mixing. Approach to a critical level: v0 and u
    z 70 70 65

    DALR

    60

    55 50 50 160 180 200 220 240 260 160 T( z 50 ) 260

    Mesospheric Circulation
    Anomalous mesospheric structures suggests need for dynamical forcing (Rayleigh friction) (Murgatroyd and Singleton, 1961; Leovy, 1964).

    Gravity wave impact on the mesospheric circulation (Holton, 1982, 1983).

    Change of Gravity Wave Forcing between summer and winter


    Filtering of gravity waves by stratospheric wind system: gravity wave will be reected or absorbed at critical layer.
    Eastward stratospheric jet under normal winter conditions: dominant westward propagating gravity waves in the mesosphere. Stratospheric wind reversal during equinox: dominant direction of gravity wave in mesosphere also reverses due to ltering.

    winter

    summer

    Model simulation of gravity waves forced by deep convection


    no critical level

    critical level (U>0)

    Alexander and Holton, 2000

    Mesosphere exhibits complex circulation that is far from radiative equilibrium: cold in the summer, warm in the winter

    Tides are wave variations with periods of 24,12, and hrs.

    Annual, daily, and subdaily atmospheric tides are seen in surface pressure, GPS-derived tropospheric delay, and mesospheric winds Atmospheric tides dominate the dynamics of the mesosphere-lower thermosphere.

    She et al., 2003

    Tidal Variability
    Gravity Wave Interactions : Planetary Wave Interactions

    Results obtained for a 9 day run by the CSU UVT lidar illustrate the variability of the tidal structure in response to GW and tidal uctuations.

    PV on 350K surface on 4, 5 and 6 July 1979

    PV on 350K surface on 16, 17 and 18 Dec 1993

    Nonlinear theory
    Linear propagation from midlatitudes to lower Wave propagation latitudes Waves break as they approach their critical latitude (u=0 stationary waves) Rearrangement of PV field in the critical layer (advection around closed streamlines)
    Wave breaking

    Huang and Reber, 2002 Diurnal tides observed by UARS/HRDI at 95 km.

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