Intra-annual variations of spectrally resolved gravity wave activity in the upper mesosphere/lower thermosphere (UMLT) region

Sedlak, René; Zuhr, Alexandra; Schmidt, Carsten; Wüst, Sabine; Bittner, Michael; Didebulidze, Goderdzi G.; Price, Colin

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-5117-2020

Articles | Volume 13, issue 9

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-5117-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-5117-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 13, issue 9

Research article

|

29 Sep 2020

Research article |

| 29 Sep 2020

Intra-annual variations of spectrally resolved gravity wave activity in the upper mesosphere/lower thermosphere (UMLT) region

René Sedlak, Alexandra Zuhr, Carsten Schmidt, Sabine Wüst, Michael Bittner, Goderdzi G. Didebulidze, and Colin Price

Data sets

GRIPS data C. Schmidt https://ndmc.dlr.de/operational-data-products

Short summary

Gravity wave (GW) activity in the UMLT in the period range 6-480 min is calculated by applying a wavelet analysis to nocturnal temperature time series derived from OH* airglow spectrometers. We analyse measurements from eight different locations at different latitudes. GW activity shows strong period dependence. We find hardly any seasonal variability for periods below 60 min and a semi-annual cycle for periods longer than 60 min that evolves into an annual cycle around a period of 200 min.