The deep convection from monsoons is known to be a major source of gravity waves in the Earth's summer troposphere. While propagating through the middle atmosphere, these waves can carry their momentum up to the mesosphere, following either a vertical or an oblique path. This upward and oblique propagation of gravity waves refers to the latitudinal propagation, away from their low-latitude tropospheric source and towards the polar summer mesosphere. Their dissipation in this atmospheric region plays an important role in the global dynamical structure of the middle atmosphere and yet, the oblique propagation of gravity waves is not included in the present global models. Understanding the influence of the obliquely propagating monsoon gravity waves on the polar summer mesosphere, as well as the hemispheric and seasonal variations of this phenomenon, can improve the gravity-wave parameterization schemes used in the global models. My dissertation relies upon the atmosphere theory and the gravity-wave observations, first, to perform an observational analysis of the oblique propagation of gravity waves in the summer hemisphere. In response to temperature anomalies in the winter northern stratosphere, the distribution of the gravity-wave pseudomomentum flux in the opposite summer mesosphere appeared to be altered. This in turn changes the gravity-wave oblique propagation and its influence on the temperature variations seen in the polar mesospheric clouds. After the development of a 4-D non-hydrostatic ray-tracing model for the simulation of the gravity-wave propagation, my dissertation explores the hemispheric and seasonal differences in the propagation and dissipation of more than 40,000 gravity waves from the low-latitude troposphere. These ray-tracing simulations show the southern hemisphere to be more conducive to both the vertical and the oblique propagation of tropospheric to mesospheric gravity waves. This analysis also highlighted a strong wave filtering at the northern tropopause where a significant number of gravity waves were vertically reflected before reaching the stratosphere. / Doctor of Philosophy / The propagation of waves throughout the Earth's atmosphere is a key phenomenon to understanding the global atmosphere dynamics. These atmospheric waves are known to change the temperature, the pressure, the density and the composition of the middle atmosphere. As a wave propagates upward, the density of the atmospheric background exponentially decreases, resulting in an exponential increase in the wave amplitude and thus, an exponential increase in the energy carried by the wave. When the wave breaks, this energy is released and transferred to the background flow. Gravity waves are part of the atmospheric wave spectrum that is of interest to the scientific community. While small-scale gravity waves can form from tropospheric instabilities such as an unbalanced flow over the mountains or a deep convection from monsoon or thunderstorms, they can propagate up to the upper mesosphere where they can break and transfer a significant amount of energy to the background flow. Although the significant role of these gravity waves in the coupling mechanisms between atmospheric regions is without dispute, their horizontal scale is too small to be resolved by most of the global-scale atmospheric models. The deep convection from monsoon regions is known to be a major source of mesospheric GWs and previous studies on summer northern hemisphere have shown that monsoon GWs tend to propagate obliquely from the low-latitude stratopause up to the high-latitude mesopause. We focus the observational study on the summer southern hemisphere and the Inter-Hemispheric Coupling (IHC) between the summer mesopause, where Polar Mesospheric Clouds (PMCs) form, and the winter stratosphere where sudden warmings occur. PMCs are excellent indicators of atmospheric changes. Their correlations with wind, temperature and GW pseudomomentum flux highlight the consequences of anomalies in the winter stratosphere, such as warmings, on the oblique propagation of GWs that influence the PMC formation in the summer southern hemisphere. After the computation of a ray-tracing model for the simulation of the gravity-wave propagation, a hemispheric and seasonal comparison of the tropospheric to mesospheric gravity-wave propagation based on four simulations highlights the spectral nature of this phenomenon.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/112996 |
| Date | 01 July 2021 |
| Creators | Alexandre, David |
| Contributors | Aerospace and Ocean Engineering, England, Scott L., Paterson, Eric G., Thurairajah, Brentha, Bailey, Scott M. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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