Earth and Planetary Physics (Apr 2022)

Joint observation of the concentric gravity wave event on the Tibetan Plateau

  • Chang Lai,
  • PengWei Li,
  • JiYao Xu,
  • Wei Yuan,
  • Jia Yue,
  • Xiao Liu,
  • Kogure Masaru,
  • LiLi Qian

DOI
https://doi.org/10.26464/epp2022029
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 6, no. 3
pp. 219 – 227

Abstract

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A concentric gravity wave event was captured by a photographer in Nagarzê County (90.28°N, 28.33°E) between 02:00 and 04:00 (local time) on May 11, 2019. This concentric gravity wave event was also observed by the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite and the all-sky airglow imager at Yangbajing station (90.5°E, 30.1°N). The temporal and spatial information on gravity waves from the photographs provided a rare opportunity to study the propagation of gravity waves over the Tibetan Plateau. According to wind and temperature data from the MERRA-2 reanalysis (Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2) and empirical models (NRLMSISE-00 [Naval Research Laboratory Mass Spectrometer and Incoherent Scatter Radar Exosphere] and HWM [horizontal wind model]), we inversely derived the propagation trajectory from the observed wave pattern to the source region by using the ray-tracing method. The source of the concentric gravity wave was identified as deep convection in Bangladesh (90.6°E, 25.0°N). The maximum background wind speed in the propagation direction (31.05 m/s) was less than the phase speed of 53 m/s, which is consistent with the wind-filtering theory.

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