Stratospheric inertia-gravity waves generated in a numerical model of frontogenesis. II: Wave sources, generation mechanisms and momentum fluxes

1996 ◽  
Vol 122 (533) ◽  
pp. 1175-1195 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL J REEDER ◽  
MORWENNA GRIFFITHS
2008 ◽  
Vol 65 (5) ◽  
pp. 1622-1637 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Vanneste

Abstract This paper discusses some of the mechanisms whereby fast inertia–gravity waves can be generated spontaneously by slow, balanced atmospheric and oceanic flows. In the small Rossby number regime relevant to midlatitude dynamics, high-accuracy balanced models, which filter out inertia–gravity waves completely, can in principle describe the evolution of suitably initialized flows up to terms that are exponentially small in the Rossby number ɛ, that is, of the form exp(−α/ɛ) for some α > 0. This suggests that the mechanisms of inertia–gravity wave generation, which are not captured by these balanced models, are also exponentially weak. This has been confirmed by explicit analytical results obtained for a few highly simplified models. These results are reviewed, and some of the exponential-asymptotic techniques that have been used in their derivation are presented. Two types of mechanisms are examined: spontaneous-generation mechanisms, which generate exponentially small waves from perfectly balanced initial conditions, and unbalanced instability mechanisms, which amplify unbalanced initial perturbations of steady flows. The relevance of the results to realistic flows is discussed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (6) ◽  
pp. 355-366
Author(s):  
Vladimir V. Shashkin ◽  
Gordey S. Goyman

AbstractThis paper proposes the combination of matrix exponential method with the semi-Lagrangian approach for the time integration of shallow water equations on the sphere. The second order accuracy of the developed scheme is shown. Exponential semi-Lagrangian scheme in the combination with spatial approximation on the cubed-sphere grid is verified using the standard test problems for shallow water models. The developed scheme is as good as the conventional semi-implicit semi-Lagrangian scheme in accuracy of slowly varying flow component reproduction and significantly better in the reproduction of the fast inertia-gravity waves. The accuracy of inertia-gravity waves reproduction is close to that of the explicit time-integration scheme. The computational efficiency of the proposed exponential semi-Lagrangian scheme is somewhat lower than the efficiency of semi-implicit semi-Lagrangian scheme, but significantly higher than the efficiency of explicit, semi-implicit, and exponential Eulerian schemes.


2010 ◽  
Vol 136 (647) ◽  
pp. 537-548 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. A. Hendricks ◽  
W. H. Schubert ◽  
S. R. Fulton ◽  
B. D. McNoldy

2014 ◽  
Vol 32 (9) ◽  
pp. 1129-1143 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. D. Zhang ◽  
C. M. Huang ◽  
K. M. Huang ◽  
F. Yi ◽  
Y. H. Zhang ◽  
...  

Abstract. We extended the broad spectral method proposed by Zhang et al. (2013) for the extraction of medium- and high-frequency gravity waves (MHGWs). This method was applied to 11 years (1998–2008) of radiosonde data from 92 stations in the Northern Hemisphere to investigate latitudinal, continuous vertical and seasonal variability of MHGW parameters in the lower atmosphere (2–25 km). The latitudinal and vertical distributions of the wave energy density and horizontal momentum fluxes as well as their seasonal variations exhibit considerable consistency with those of inertial gravity waves. Despite the consistency, the MHGWs have much larger energy density, horizontal momentum fluxes and wave force, indicating the more important role of MHGWs in energy and momentum transportation and acceleration of the background. For the observed MHGWs, the vertical wavelengths are usually larger than 8 km; the horizontal wavelengths peak in the middle troposphere at middle–high latitudes. These characteristics are obviously different from inertial gravity waves. The energy density and horizontal momentum fluxes have similar latitude-dependent seasonality: both of them are dominated by a semiannual variation at low latitudes and an annual variation at middle latitudes; however at high latitudes, they often exhibit more than two peaks per year in the troposphere. Compared with the inertial GWs, the derived intrinsic frequencies are more sensitive to the spatiotemporal variation of the buoyancy frequency, and at all latitudinal regions they are higher in summer. The wavelengths have a weaker seasonal variation; an evident annual cycle can be observed only at middle latitudes.


2013 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 382-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julien Jouanno ◽  
Frédéric Marin ◽  
Yves du Penhoat ◽  
Jean-Marc Molines

Abstract A regional numerical model of the tropical Atlantic Ocean and observations are analyzed to investigate the intraseasonal fluctuations of the sea surface temperature at the equator in the Gulf of Guinea. Results indicate that the seasonal cooling in this region is significantly shaped by short-duration cooling events caused by wind-forced equatorial waves: mixed Rossby–gravity waves within the 12–20-day period band, inertia–gravity waves with periods below 11 days, and equatorially trapped Kelvin waves with periods between 25 and 40 days. In these different ranges of frequencies, it is shown that the wave-induced horizontal oscillations of the northern front of the mean cold tongue dominate the variations of mixed layer temperature near the equator. But the model mixed layer heat budget also shows that the equatorial waves make a significant contribution to the mixed layer heat budget through modulation of the turbulent cooling, especially above the core of the Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC). The turbulent cooling variability is found to be mainly controlled by the intraseasonal modulation of the vertical shear in the upper ocean. This mechanism is maximum during periods of seasonal cooling, especially in boreal summer, when the surface South Equatorial Current is strongest and between 2°S and the equator, where the presence of the EUC provides a background vertical shear in the upper ocean. It applies for the three types of intraseasonal waves. Inertia–gravity waves also modulate the turbulent heat flux at the equator through vertical displacement of the core of the EUC in response to equatorial divergence and convergence.


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