Sodium lidar-observed strong inertia-gravity wave activities in the mesopause region over Fort Collins, Colorado (41°N, 105°W)

Abstract

In December 2004, the Colorado State University sodium lidar system at Fort Collins, Colorado (41°N, 105°W), conducted an e180-hour continuous campaign for the simultaneous observations of mesopause region sodium density, temperature, and zonal and meridional winds. This data set reveals the significant inertia-gravity wave activities with a period of ∼18 hours, which are strong in both wind components since UT day 338 (second day of the campaign), and weak in temperature and sodium density. The considerable variability of wave activities was observed with both wind amplitudes growing up to ∼40 m/s at 95-100 km in day 339 and then decreasing dramatically in day 340. We also found that the sodium density wave perturbation is correlated in phase with temperature perturbation below 90 km, and ∼180° out of phase above. Applying the linear wave theory, we estimated the wave horizontal propagation direction, horizontal wavelength, and apparent horizontal phase speed to be ∼25° south of west, ∼1800 ± 150 km, and ∼28 ± 2 m/s, respectively. The vertical profiles of wave intrinsic period, intrinsic phase speed, and vertical wavelength were also estimated. While the onset of enhanced inertia-gravity wave amplitude in the night of 339 was observed to be in coincidence with short-period gravity wave breaking via convective instability, the decrease of inertia-gravity wave amplitude after noon of day 339 was also observed to coincide with the development of atmospheric dynamical instability layers with downward phase progression clearly correlated with the 18-hour inertia-gravity wave, suggesting likely breaking of this inertia-gravity wave via dynamical (shear) instability. Copyright 2007 by the American Geophysical Union.