Meteorological waves (by Ocean Color Scanner Data)

Abstract

Data of normalized water leaving radiance at a wavelength 859 nm Lwn(859) of 250-m spatial resolution obtained from Moderate Ocean Color Scanners (MODIS) installed on Aqua and Terra satellites were used to study meteorological waves. These waves are caused by atmospheric internal gravity waves at the expense of a change of atmospheric pressure impacting the sea surface and bringing a change in its level; they are observable everywhere in the ocean. Examples of meteorological waves were considered for the eastern part of the Black Sea, where they appeared as stripes of alternate brightness on Lwn(859) images. It is shown that meteorological waves at one and the same place can be totally generated by atmospheric waves spreading at different heights of the lower troposphere. The 3D characteristics of meteorological waves were evaluated including the direction of wave propagation, crest length reaching more than one hundred kilometers, wavelength of several tens centimeters, and wave amplitude of several tens of centimeters. For conditions of intermittent cloudiness, imposition in a difference mode of the level L1b radiance image with the signature of atmospheric waves in a cloud and of the level L2 water leaving the radiance image with the signature of meteorological waves enabled us to examine the phase structure of waves and to reveal the existence of resonance.