Global static stability and its relation to gravity waves in the middle atmosphere

Abstract

The global atmospheric static stability (N2) in the middle atmosphere and its relation to gravity waves (GWs) were investigated by using the temperature profiles measured by the Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry (SABER) instrument from 2002 to 2018. At low latitudes, a layer with enhanced N2 occurs at an altitude of ~20 km and exhibits annual oscillations caused by tropopause inversion layers. Above an altitude of ~70 km, enhanced N2 exhibits semiannual oscillations at low latitudes caused by the mesosphere inversion layers and annual oscillations at high latitudes resulting from the downward shift of the summer mesopause. The correlation coefficients between N2 and GW amplitudes can be larger than 0.8 at latitudes poleward of ~40°N/S. This observation provides factual evidence that a large N2 supports large-amplitude GWs and indicates that N2 plays a dominant role in maintaining GWs at least at high latitudes of the middle atmosphere. This evidence also partially explains the previous results regarding the phase changes of annual oscillations of GWs at high latitudes.