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Gravity waves simulated by high‐resolution Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model
Author(s) -
Liu H.L.,
McInerney J. M.,
Santos S.,
Lauritzen P. H.,
Taylor M. A.,
Pedatella N. M.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/2014gl062468
Subject(s) - stratosphere , gravity wave , atmosphere (unit) , atmospheric sciences , environmental science , atmospheric model , depth sounding , mesoscale meteorology , thermosphere , climate model , climatology , geology , gravitational wave , meteorology , physics , geophysics , climate change , ionosphere , oceanography , astrophysics
For the first time a mesoscale‐resolving whole atmosphere general circulation model has been developed, using the National Center for Atmospheric Research Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model with ∼0.25° horizontal resolution and 0.1 scale height vertical resolution above the middle stratosphere (higher resolution below). This is made possible by the high accuracy and high scalability of the spectral element dynamical core from the High‐Order Method Modeling Environment. For the simulated January–February period, the latitude‐height structure and the magnitudes of the temperature variance compare well with those deduced from the Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry (SABER) observations. The simulation reveals the increasing dominance of gravity waves (GWs) at higher altitudes through both the height dependence of the kinetic energy spectra, which display a steeper slope (∼−3) in the stratosphere and an increasingly shallower slope above, and the increasing spatial extent of GWs (including a planetary‐scale extent of a concentric GW excited by a tropical cyclone) at higher altitudes. GW impacts on the large‐scale flow are evaluated in terms of zonal mean zonal wind and tides: with no GW drag parameterized in the simulations, forcing by resolved GWs does reverse the summer mesospheric wind, albeit at an altitude higher than climatology, and only slows down the winter mesospheric wind without closing it. The hemispheric structures and magnitudes of diurnal and semidiurnal migrating tides compare favorably with observations.