Abstract
Since the paper of Hines (1960), the heating of the thermosphere by gravity waves is well known. Until recently there were no statistical evaluations of their energy. The present paper is a study of this subject. From experimental data of a Faraday rotation experiment and with the help of a measurement theory and a propagation model in a dissipative atmosphere, we evaluated the mean energy flux for the medium scale gravity waves detected during July 1974. We found 0.11 erg cm −2 s −1 for waves with horizontal phase velocity between 100 and 180 m s −1. We also evaluated the heights of energy deposition which are from 120 to 180 km. This study shows that the heating by gravity waves may be important for the thermospheric equilibrium.
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