Articles | Volume 7, issue 12
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-7-4123-2014
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-7-4123-2014
Research article
 | 
03 Dec 2014
Research article |  | 03 Dec 2014

Analysis of internal gravity waves with GPS RO density profiles

P. Šácha, U. Foelsche, and P. Pišoft

Abstract. GPS radio occultation (RO) data have proved to be a great tool for atmospheric monitoring and studies. In the past decade, they were frequently used for analyses of the internal gravity waves in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere region. Atmospheric density is the first quantity of state gained in the retrieval process and is not burdened by additional assumptions. However, there are no studies elaborating in detail the utilization of GPS RO density profiles for gravity wave analyses. In this paper, we introduce a method for density background separation and a methodology for internal gravity wave analysis using the density profiles. Various background choices are discussed and the correspondence between analytical forms of the density and temperature background profiles is examined. In the stratosphere, a comparison between the power spectrum of normalized density and normalized dry temperature fluctuations confirms the suitability of the density profiles' utilization. In the height range of 8–40 km, results of the continuous wavelet transform are presented and discussed. Finally, the limits of our approach are discussed and the advantages of the density usage are listed.

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Short summary
In the presented paper, we introduce a method for the density background separation and a methodology for internal gravity waves analysis using the GPS RO density profiles. Various background choices are discussed, and the correspondence between analytical forms of the density and dry temperature background profiles is examined. Finally the advantages of the density instead of dry temperature GPS RO data utilization are listed (e.g. inclusion of non-hydrostatic waves).