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    Characteristics and sources of gravity waves observed in noctilucent cloud over Norway
    (München : European Geopyhsical Union, 2014) Demissie, T.D.; Espy, P.J.; Kleinknecht, N.H.; Hatlen, M.; Kaifler, N.; Baumgarten, G.
    Four years of noctilucent cloud (NLC) images from an automated digital camera in Trondheim and results from a ray-tracing model are used to extend the climatology of gravity waves to higher latitudes and to identify their sources during summertime. The climatology of the summertime gravity waves detected in NLC between 64 and 74° N is similar to that observed between 60 and 64° N by Pautet et al. (2011). The direction of propagation of gravity waves observed in the NLC north of 64° N is a continuation of the north and northeast propagation as observed in south of 64° N. However, a unique population of fast, short wavelength waves propagating towards the SW is observed in the NLC, which is consistent with transverse instabilities generated in situ by breaking gravity waves (Fritts and Alexander, 2003). The relative amplitude of the waves observed in the NLC Mie scatter have been combined with ray-tracing results to show that waves propagating from near the tropopause, rather than those resulting from secondary generation in the stratosphere or mesosphere, are more likely to be the sources of the prominent wave structures observed in the NLC. The coastal region of Norway along the latitude of 70° N is identified as the primary source region of the waves generated near the tropopause.
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    Gravity waves excited during a minor sudden stratospheric warming
    (Katlenburg-Lindau : EGU, 2018-9-7) Dörnbrack, Andreas; Gisinger, Sonja; Kaifler, Natalie; Portele, Tanja Christina; Bramberger, Martina; Rapp, Markus; Gerding, Michael; Söder, Jens; Žagar, Nedjeljka; Jelić, Damjan
    An exceptionally deep upper-air sounding launched from Kiruna airport (67.82∘ N, 20.33∘ E) on 30 January 2016 stimulated the current investigation of internal gravity waves excited during a minor sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) in the Arctic winter 2015/16. The analysis of the radiosonde profile revealed large kinetic and potential energies in the upper stratosphere without any simultaneous enhancement of upper tropospheric and lower stratospheric values. Upward-propagating inertia-gravity waves in the upper stratosphere and downward-propagating modes in the lower stratosphere indicated a region of gravity wave generation in the stratosphere. Two-dimensional wavelet analysis was applied to vertical time series of temperature fluctuations in order to determine the vertical propagation direction of the stratospheric gravity waves in 1-hourly high-resolution meteorological analyses and short-term forecasts. The separation of upward- and downward-propagating waves provided further evidence for a stratospheric source of gravity waves. The scale-dependent decomposition of the flow into a balanced component and inertia-gravity waves showed that coherent wave packets preferentially occurred at the inner edge of the Arctic polar vortex where a sub-vortex formed during the minor SSW.
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    Semidiurnal solar tide differences between fall and spring transition times in the Northern Hemisphere
    (Göttingen : Copernicus GmbH, 2018) Conte, J.F.; Chau, J.L.; Laskar, F.I.; Stober, G.; Schmidt, H.; Brown, P.
    We present a study of the semidiurnal solar tide (S2) during the fall and spring transition times in the Northern Hemisphere. The tides have been obtained from wind measurements provided by three meteor radars located at Andenes (69° N, 16° E), Juliusruh (54° N, 13° E) and Tavistock (42° N, 81° W). During the fall, S2 is characterized by a sudden and pronounced decrease occurring every year and at all height levels. The spring transition also shows a decrease in S2, but not sudden and that ascends from lower to higher altitudes during an interval of ∼ 15 to 40 days. To assess contributions of different semidiurnal tidal components, we have examined a 20-year free-run simulation by the Hamburg Model of the Neutral and Ionized Atmosphere (HAMMONIA). We found that the differences exhibited by the S2 tide between equinox times are mainly due to distinct behaviors of the migrating semidiurnal and the non-migrating westward-propagating wave number 1 tidal components (SW2 and SW1, respectively). Specifically, during the fall both SW2 and SW1 decrease, while during the springtime SW2 decreases but SW1 remains approximately constant or decreases only slightly. The decrease shown by SW1 during the fall occurs later than that of SW2 and S2, which indicates that the behavior of S2 is mainly driven by the migrating component. Nonetheless, the influence of SW1 is necessary to explain the behavior of S2 during the spring. In addition, a strong shift in the phase of S2 (of SW2 in the simulations) is also observed during the fall. Our meteor radar wind measurements show more gravity wave activity in the fall than during the spring, which might be indicating that the fall decrease is partly due to interactions between SW2 and gravity waves. © 2018 Author(s).