Variability of the Brunt–Väisälä frequency at the OH* layer height
Sabine Wüst1,Michael Bittner1,2,Jeng-Hwa Yee3,Martin G. Mlynczak4,and James M. Russell III5Sabine Wüst et al. Sabine Wüst1,Michael Bittner1,2,Jeng-Hwa Yee3,Martin G. Mlynczak4,and James M. Russell III5
1Deutsches Fernerkundungsdatenzentrum (DFD), Deutsches Zentrum für Luft-
und Raumfahrt (DLR), Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany
2Institut für Physik, Universität Augsburg, Augsburg,
Germany
3Applied Physics Laboratory, The Johns Hopkins University, Laurel,
Maryland, USA
4NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia, USA
5Center for Atmospheric Sciences, Hampton, Virginia, USA
1Deutsches Fernerkundungsdatenzentrum (DFD), Deutsches Zentrum für Luft-
und Raumfahrt (DLR), Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany
2Institut für Physik, Universität Augsburg, Augsburg,
Germany
3Applied Physics Laboratory, The Johns Hopkins University, Laurel,
Maryland, USA
4NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia, USA
5Center for Atmospheric Sciences, Hampton, Virginia, USA
Received: 19 Jun 2017 – Discussion started: 13 Jul 2017 – Revised: 26 Sep 2017 – Accepted: 01 Oct 2017 – Published: 14 Dec 2017
Abstract. In and near the Alpine region, the most dense subnetwork of identical NDMC (Network for the Detection of Mesospheric Change, https://www.wdc.dlr.de/ndmc/) instruments can be found: five stations are equipped with OH* spectrometers which deliver a time series of mesopause temperature for each cloudless or only partially cloudy night. These measurements are suitable for the derivation of the density of gravity wave potential energy, provided that the Brunt–Väisälä frequency is known.
However, OH* spectrometers do not deliver vertically resolved temperature information, which is necessary for the calculation of the Brunt–Väisälä frequency. Co-located measurements or climatological values are needed.
We use 14 years of satellite-based temperature data (TIMED-SABER, 2002–2015) to investigate the inter- and intra-annual variability of the Brunt–Väisälä frequency at the OH* layer height between 43.93–48.09° N and 5.71–12.95° E and provide a climatology.
In the Alpine region, the most dense subnetwork of identical NDMC (Network for the Detection of Mesospheric Change) instruments can be found. With these instruments the mesopause temperature is derived each night. The data can be used for the investigation of the amount of energy which is transported by small-scale atmospheric waves, known as gravity waves, provided that the so-called Brunt–Väisälä frequency is known. Information about the variability of this parameter is provided here.
In the Alpine region, the most dense subnetwork of identical NDMC (Network for the Detection of...
