Modeling Studies of Gravity Wave Dynamics in Highly Structured Environments: Reflection, Trapping, Instability, Momentum Transport, Secondary Gravity Waves, and Induced Flow Responses

A compressible numerical model is applied for three-dimensional (3-D) gravity wave (GW) packets undergoing momentum deposition, self-acceleration (SA), breaking, and secondary GW (SGW) generation in the presence of highly-structured environments enabling thermal and/or Doppler ducts, such as a mesospheric inversion layer (MIL), tidal wind (TW), or combination of MIL and TW. Simulations reveal that ducts can strongly modulate GW dynamics. Responses modeled here include reflection, trapping, suppressed transmission, strong local instabilities, reduced SGW generations, higher altitude SGW responses, and induced large-scale flows. Instabilities that arise in ducts experience strong dissipation after they emerge, while trapped smaller-amplitude and smaller-scale GWs can survive in ducts to much later times. Additionally, GW breaking and its associated dynamics enhance the local wind along the GW propagation direction in the ducts, and yield layering in the wind field. However, these dynamics do not yield significant heat transport in the ducts. The failure of GW breaking to induce stratified layers in the temperature field suggests that such heat transport might not be as strong as previously assumed or inferred from observations and theoretical assessments. The present numerical simulations confirm previous finding that MIL generation may not be caused by the breaking of a transient high-frequency GW packet alone.

Gravity Wave Dynamics in a Mesospheric Inversion Layer: 1. Reflection, Trapping, and Instability Dynamics

An anelastic numerical model is employed to explore the dynamics of gravity waves (GWs) encountering a mesosphere inversion layer (MIL) having a moderate static stability enhancement and a layer of weaker static stability above. Instabilities occur within the MIL when the GW amplitude approaches that required for GW breaking due to compression of the vertical wavelength accompanying the increasing static stability. Thus, MILs can cause large-amplitude GWs to yield instabilities and turbulence below the altitude where they would otherwise arise. Smaller-amplitude GWs encountering a MIL do not lead to instability and turbulence but do exhibit partial reflection and transmission, and the transmission is a smaller fraction of the incident GW when instabilities and turbulence arise within the MIL. Additionally, greater GW transmission occurs for weaker MILs and for GWs having larger vertical wavelengths relative to the MIL depth and for lower GW intrinsic frequencies. These results imply similar dynamics for inversions due to other sources, including the tropopause inversion layer, the high stability capping the polar summer mesopause, and lower frequency GWs or tides having sufficient amplitudes to yield significant variations in stability at large and small vertical scales. MILs also imply much stronger reflections and less coherent GW propagation in environments having significant fine structure in the stability and velocity fields than in environments that are smoothly varying.

SME observations of O2 (1 delta g) nightglow: an assessment of the chemical production mechanisms

Solar Mesosphere Explorer (SME) observations of the 3 a.m. 1.27 micrometers nightglow at 45 N latitude, averaged over the period 10-31 July 1984, are reported. From the deduced volume emission rates, we derive the O2(a1 delta g) night-time production rates for the 80-100 km altitude range. Utilizing the mean SME-acquired 3 p.m. ozone profile for the same latitude and time period and an updated photochemical model, we determine night-time O, O3, H, OH, HO2, and H2O2 profiles. These are used in calculating the rates of reactions which are sufficiently exothermic to produce O2(1 delta) or excited states of OH or HO2, which could transfer their energy to O2 to form O2(1 delta). Of these reactions, most have rates that are quite small compared with the observed night-time O2(1 delta) production rate. For several others, laboratory experiments have found O2(1 delta) yields which are insufficient for simulating the observed O2(1 delta). Using yields of O2(1 delta) based on published laboratory and observational studies, we find that the sum of two reaction sequences can approximate the SME measurements: (1) O+O+M and (2) H+O3 followed by OH*+O2.