Internal gravity waves in atmospheres with realistic dissipation and temperature part I. Mathematical development and propagation of waves into the thermosphere

Abstract

Abstract In this, the first part of a three part study, we develop a model for the theoretical analysis of 3‐dimensional internal gravity waves in atmospheres with arbitrary distributions of basic temperature, molecular weight, viscosity and conductivity (both eddy and molecular), Newtonian cooling, anisotropic hydromagnetic (ion) drag, and thermal excitation. Attention is given to the physical bases for our models, and a detailed outline is given of the numerical method used to solve the resulting system of equations. As an application of the above development, we study the ability of five particular gravity waves (chosen for their observed importance in the neighborhood of 90–100 km—four of the waves are simulated tidal modes) to propagate from 90 km into the thermosphere. We choose to define the thermosphere as that portion of the atmosphere above the turbopause (ca. 110 km). Among the most significant results to emerge are the following: (i) the effects of molecular viscosity and conductivity appear t...