Airborne measurements and large-eddy simulations of small-scale gravity waves at the tropopause inversion layer over Scandinavia

Gisinger, Sonja; Wagner, Johannes; Witschas, Benjamin

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10091-2020

Articles | Volume 20, issue 16

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10091-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Sources, propagation, dissipation and impact of gravity waves...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10091-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 16

Research article

|

28 Aug 2020

Research article |

| 28 Aug 2020

Airborne measurements and large-eddy simulations of small-scale gravity waves at the tropopause inversion layer over Scandinavia

Sonja Gisinger, Johannes Wagner, and Benjamin Witschas

Data sets

HALO Database (Mission POLSTRACC, flights 160128a HALO, 160128a,b Falcon) DLR https://doi.org/10.17616/R39Q0T

Short summary

Gravity waves are an important coupling mechanism in the atmosphere. Measurements by two research aircraft during a mountain wave event over Scandinavia in 2016 revealed changes of the horizontal scales in the vertical velocity field and of momentum fluxes in the vicinity of the tropopause inversion. Idealized simulations revealed the presence of interfacial waves. They are found downstream of the mountain peaks, meaning that they horizontally transport momentum/energy away from their source.