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Sensitivity study for mesoscale simulations of gravity waves above Antarctica during Vorcore
Author(s) -
Plougonven Riwal,
Arsac Antonin,
Hertzog Albert,
Guez Lionel,
Vial François
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
quarterly journal of the royal meteorological society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.744
H-Index - 143
eISSN - 1477-870X
pISSN - 0035-9009
DOI - 10.1002/qj.639
Subject(s) - mesoscale meteorology , orographic lift , gravity wave , orography , stratosphere , mm5 , sensitivity (control systems) , gravitational wave , geology , meteorology , climatology , momentum (technical analysis) , atmospheric sciences , physics , precipitation , finance , electronic engineering , astrophysics , engineering , economics
The observations from the Vorcore campaign (September 2005– January 2006) provide a unique dataset for the study of gravity waves in the lower stratosphere because of their wide coverage (150 000 observations from the South Pole to about 40 ° S) and of the quasi‐Lagrangian nature of the superpressure balloons used. Numerical simulations with a mesoscale model are undertaken in order to investigate further the observed gravity waves, their sources and the induced momentum fluxes. The need for a high spatial resolution makes it necessary to find a compromise between the size of the model domain and the length of the simulations. We describe preliminary simulations used to determine the best configuration of the model for this purpose, and show that the simulations compare reasonably well with the observations. Model results complement the observations and provide new insights into orographic and non‐orographic wave sources. Copyright © 2010 Royal Meteorological Society