Theoretical interpretation of atmospheric wavenumber spectra of wind and temperature observed by commercial aircraft during GASP.

Abstract

Contains a theoretical interpretation of the wavenumber spectra of wind and temperature obtained from an analysis of data from over 6900 flights during the Global Atmospheric Sampling Program. Major features of the observed spectra are found to be in general agreement with expectations from theoretical models of quasi two-dimensional turbulence. The GASP spectra are compared in a general way with recently proposed internal wave spectral models which have been advanced to account for the mesoscale spectrum of atmospheric motions. It is argued that these spectral models are inconsistent with the non-Doppler shifted spectrum of waves needed to compare with the aircraft wavenumber spectrum presented here. - from Authors