A satellite perspective on interactions between convective storms and the upper atmosphere

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00020699%3A_____%2F19%3AN0000069" target="_blank" >RIV/00020699:_____/19:N0000069 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

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DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

A satellite perspective on interactions between convective storms and the upper atmosphere

Original language description

By the end of 1980’s, convective storms had been identified as the principal source of concentric gravitywaves (CGW), occasionally manifesting as modulations to atmospheric nightglow near the mesopause (at about85-100km levels). Since then, various methods of gravity wave detection in the upper stratosphere and mesospherehave significantly evolved and improved, including satellite observations. Among the latter, nocturnal low-lightobservations by Day/Night Band (DNB) of the Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20 (JPSS-1) satellites, and observationsby hyperspectral sounders such as AIRS (aboard Aqua satellite) and IASI (on Metop), have begun to revolutionizethe way we are able to observe and characterize this important atmospheric energy transfer mechanism.This work focuses on DNB observations of CGW (generated by convective storms) in nightglow emissions, andpreliminary statistics of their global occurrence. To date, we have collected about 100 worldwide CGW cases(2014/4 cases, 2015/13 cases, 2016/14 cases, 2017/33 cases, and 2018/48 cases). While the cases during 2014– 2016 were gathered unmethodically (based on scrutiny of DNB imagery in correlation with deep convectionas identified in various infrared band imagery), the cases from 2017 and 2018 result from a global systematicsurvey of NPP-DNB imagery, available through NASA’s EOSDIS Worldview service since December 2016.The majority of these cases come from north subtropics of Africa (56 cases), followed by Australia (16 cases),Mediterranean (11 cases), Argentina (7 cases), and the remainder coming from elsewhere. However, these numbersare compromised and biased by a significant non-meteorological factor: heavy light pollution in some of theotherwise storm-rich areas, such as the U.S. or China, where the bright background adversly impacts DNB-basedCWG detection.Besides the statistics above, we will present some of the characteristics of CGW seen by the DNB in nightglow,including typical horizontal wavelengths (resolved by the 0.74 km pixel resolution of the DNB) and theirhorizontal extent (reaching up to 2500-3000 km from their source in the most extreme cases). For selected casesmentioned above we will also present their corresponding manifestation in AIRS and IASI data, which showthe CGW at lower altitudes than DNB, in the upper stratosphere (at about 40km). This analysis yields the firstbasic statistics on the simultaneous occurrence of CGWs spanning the stratosphere through the mesosphere. Assuch, this study illustrates the promising potential of multisensor observations of CWG throughout the middleatmosphere at spatial and temporal resolutions previously unavailable at the global scale.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

O - Miscellaneous

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

10509 - Meteorology and atmospheric sciences

Project

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Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2019

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů