On the determination of gravity wave momentum flux from GPS radio occultation data

[摘要] Global Positioning System (GPS) radio occultation (RO) is a well-established technique for obtainingglobal gravity wave (GW) information. RO uses GPS signals received by lowEarth-orbiting satellites for atmospheric limb sounding. Temperature profilesare derived with high vertical resolution and provide a global coverage underany weather conditions, offering the possibility of global monitoring of thevertical temperature structure and atmospheric wave parameters. The six-satellite constellation COSMIC/FORMOSAT-3 delivers approximately 2000temperature profiles daily. In this study, we use a method to obtain globaldistributions of horizontal gravity wave wavelengths, to be applied in thedetermination of the vertical flux of horizontal momentum transported bygravity waves. Here, a method for the determination of the real horizontalwavelength from three vertical profiles is applied to the COSMIC data.The horizontal and vertical wavelength, the specific potential energy(E_p), and the vertical flux of horizontal momentum (MF) arecalculated and their global distribution is discussed.

[学科分类] 几何与拓扑