Abstract
This paper investigates the conditions under which gravity waves become unstable due to photochemical heating in the mesopause region. The study shows that the gravity wave growth rate induced by photochemistry is sensitive to the temperature and atomic oxygen concentration profiles. There is also a strong dependence on the background vertical eddy diffusion coefficient. Gravity waves with longer vertical and/or shorter horizontal wavelengths are less affected by diffusion and can more easily become destabilized through photochemistry. For moderately strong diffusion coefficients (100 m 2 s −1 ), photochemical destabilization occurs only for fairly long vertical wavelengths, even under the more unstable conditions of cool temperatures and high atomic oxygen density.
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