Publication Date:
2019-07-13
Description:
The "4-day wave" is an eastward moving quasi-nondispersive feature with period near 4 days occurring near the winter polar stratopause. This paper presents evidence of the 4-day feature in Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) temperature, geopotential height, and ozone data from the late southern winters of 1992 and 1993. Space-time spectral analyses reveal a double-peaked temperature structure consisting of one peak near the stratopause and another in the lower mesosphere, with an out-of-phase relationship between the two peaks. This double- peaked structure is reminiscent of recent three-dimensional barotropic/baroclinic instability model predictions and is observed here for the first time. The height variation of the 4-day ozone signal is shown to compare well with a linear advective-photochemical tracer model. Negative regions of quasigeostrophic potential vorticity (PV) gradient and positive Eliassen-Palm flux divergence are shown to occur, consistent with instability dynamics playing a role in wave forcing. Spectral analyses of PV derived from MLS geopotential height fields reveal a 4-day signal peaking near the polar stratopause. The three-dimensional structure of the 4-day wave resembles the potential vorticity "charge" concept, wherein a PV anomaly in the atmosphere (analogous to an electrical charge in a dielectric material) induces a geopotential field, a vertically oriented temperature dipole, and circulation about the vertical axis.
Keywords:
Geophysics
Type:
NASA/CR-97-207746
,
NAS 1.26:207746
,
Journal of Atmospheric Sciences; o 54; 3; 420-434
Format:
application/pdf
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