Diurnal variations of upper tropospheric and lower stratospheric winds over Japan as revealed with middle and upper atmosphere radar (34.85°N, 136.10°E) and five reanalysis data sets

Abstract

Diurnal variations in the troposphere are a source of the diurnal tides which are the prevalent dynamical phenomenon in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere. They are also discussed as contributing to the excitation of Rossby waves. Here we study diurnal variations of upper tropospheric and lower stratospheric winds (up to 22 km) over Japan from 1986 to 2008 mainly using data from the middle and upper atmosphere (MU) radar (34.85°N, 136.10°E) and JRA25/JCDAS data, as well as other four global reanalysis data sets (ERA40, ERA‐Interim, NCEP1, and NCEP2) and output data from Global Scale Wave Model (GSWM). The diurnal and semidiurnal components are extracted and analyzed. For the diurnal wind component, the MU radar data are used to validate the reanalysis data, and the reanalysis data are chosen for the analysis. The diurnal amplitude monotonically increases with height above 15–20 km. The diurnal phase shows an upward progression up to 15 to 20 km, while above 15 to 20 km, it shows a downward progression in most months. It is found that the diurnal tide, defined as the diurnal component with absolute zonal wave numbers of ≤6, is dominant in the upper troposphere (explaining 60 to 80% of the variance) and in the stratosphere (explaining 80 to 90% of the variance). It is also observed that medium‐scale waves contributed to the diurnal wind component in the upper troposphere from winter to spring (∼20% of the variance). For the semidiurnal wind component, only MU radar data are used for the analysis, which confirmed that the semidiurnal migrating tide is dominant through the troposphere and the lower stratosphere. The semidiurnal tidal amplitude shows a marked seasonal variation in the troposphere; the amplitude is largest in winter (∼0.4 m s−1) and smallest in summer (∼0.2 m s−1).