CG WaveS

Why It Matters - Gravity waves drive how energy and momentum move through the stratosphere, shaping atmospheric circulation, influencing weather patterns, and affecting the accuracy of climate models.

CG WaveS measured and quantified gravity waves generated by deep convection - ranging from single cells to frontal systems and squall lines - and tracked how those waves propagated and dissipated throughout the stratosphere. This was accomplished by lidar measurements with the Rayleigh and Na resonance lidars, originally deployed during the 2014 DEEPWAVE program in New Zealand. The Rayleigh lidar measured temperatures from 25-60 km above the aircraft, while the Na resonance lidar provided radial winds from which horizontal winds were derived at altitudes of roughly 15-25 km. A sequence of east-west and north-south flight legs over the convective systems, along with boxed flight patters, captured gravity wave signatures from their sources through their high-altitude propagation, refraction,  dissipation, and temporal evolutions.

Flight operations were conducted at night.  Radiosonde profiles and NEXRAD data guided flight planning by characterizing the gravity wave environment and the intensity and type of convective forcing. High-resolution modeling complemented the measurements by helping interpret the observations and quantify the resulting gravity wave forcing and responses throughout the stratosphere. 

Together, these measurements and models addressed key questions about:

• Gravity wave responses to convection properties such as plume scales, strengths, and rotation
• Impacts of convective clusters and frontal systems
• Gravity wave propagation and dissipation in variable stratospheric winds, and the implications of dissipation for energy and momentum deposition, mean forcing and mixing, and influences on gravity wave propagation to higher altitudes.