Analysis of a secondary 16-day planetary wave generation through nonlinear interactions in the atmosphere

Abstract

Abstract Using a nonlinear model of the general circulation of the middle and upper atmosphere (MUAM), spatio-temporal structures of planetary waves (PWs) during boreal winter were studied. Modeling of global atmospheric circulation was performed for January–February. Despite the tropospheric PW sources shaped in the model, the phenomenon of 16-day PW excitation arise out of internal atmospheric sources in the southern lower thermosphere was discovered. To explain the observed phenomenon, a number of numerical experiments were carried out according to different scenarios with a selective turning (on/off) tropospheric sources of PW individual modes (having periods of 4–16 days) in the model. Also, the evolution of perturbed potential enstrophy for a 16-day PW, as well as the contribution of nonlinear interactions between individual PW to it, was studied. This made it possible for the first time to demonstrate explicitly the process of generation a secondary 16-day PW as a result of the nonlinear interconnection of 4-day and 5-day PWs. Graphical Abstract

Keywords

• Planetary waves
• Atmospheric normal modes
• Nonlinear interaction
• Numerical simulation
• Potential enstrophy