Climatology of global gravity wave activity and dissipation revealed by SABER/TIMED temperature observations

Abstract

Gravity wave activity and dissipation in the height range from the low stratosphere to the low thermosphere (25–115 km) covering latitudes between 50°S and 50°N are statistically studied by using 9-year (January 22, 2002–December 31, 2010) SABER/TIMED temperature data. We propose a method to extract realistic gravity wave fluctuations from the temperature profiles and treat square temperature fluctuations as GW activity. Overall, the gravity wave activity generally increases with height. Near the equator (0°–10°), the gravity wave activity shows a quasi-biennial variation in the stratosphere (below 40 km) while from 20° to 30°, it exhibits an annual variation below 40 km; in low latitudes (0°–30°) between the upper stratosphere and the low thermosphere (40–115 km), the gravity wave activity shows a semi-annual variation. In middle latitudes (40°–50°), the gravity wave activity has a clear annual variation below 85 km. In addition, we observe a four-monthly variation with peaks occurring usually in April, August, December in the northern hemisphere and in February, June, October in the southern hemisphere, respectively, above 85 km in middle latitudes, which has been seldom reported in gravity wave activity. In order to study the dissipation of gravity wave propagation, we calculate the gravity wave dissipation ratio, which is defined as the ratio of the gravity wave growth scale height to the atmosphere density scale height. The height variation of the dissipation ratio indicates that strong gravity wave dissipation mainly concentrates in the three height regions: the stratosphere (30–60 km), the mesopause (around 85 km) and the low thermosphere (above 100 km). Besides, gravity wave energy enhancement can be also observed in the background atmosphere.