Abstract
Temperature profiles provided by the Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate (COSMIC) global positioning system (GPS) satellite constellation were used to study an eight-year series (2007 to 2015) of gravity wave (GW) potential energy in the stratosphere (18–30 km) around the Tibetan Plateau (TP). We found that with increasing altitude, the GW potential energy (E p) values in the stratosphere caused by convection decreases. The importance of GWs that are stimulated by topography is enhanced in this area. In the TP, which was considered to lack strong topographical GW activity, clear activity existed in the spring and winter of all studied years. Based on the latitudinal zone of the TP, the distribution of GW potential energy is highly consistent with the elevation of the local topography. The activities of topographical GWs are strongly filtered as they propagate upward to the area of zero speed wind. The analysis indicates that in the TP, clear orographic GW excitation exists and propagates upward to the upper stratosphere, where it is greatly influenced by the wind.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alexander S P, Tsuda T, Kawatani Y. 2008. COSMIC GPS observations of Northern Hemisphere winter stratospheric gravity waves and comparisons with an atmospheric general circulation model. Geophys Res Lett, 35: L10808
Bian J C, Chen H B, Lü D R. 2005. Statistics of gravity waves in the lower stratosphere over Beijing based on high vertical resolution radiosonde. Sci China Ser D-Earth Sci, 48: 1548–1558
Chen D, Chen Z Y, Lü D R. 2012. Simulation of the stratospheric gravity waves generated by the Typhoon Matsa in 2005. Sci China Earth Sci, 55: 602–610
Chen D, Chen Z Y, Lü D R. 2013. Spatiotemporal spectrum and momentum flux of the stratospheric gravity waves generated by a typhoon. Sci China Earth Sci, 56: 54–62
de la Torre A, Schmidt T, Wickert J. 2006. A global analysis of wave potential energy in the lower stratosphere derived from 5 years of GPS radio occultation data with CHAMP. Geophys Res Lett, 33: L24809
Ding X, Zhang S D, Yi F. 2011. A numerical simulation on gravity waves generated by thermal source and their influences on mean flow (in Chinese). Chin J Geophys, 54: 1701–1710
Eckermann S D, Preusse P. 1999. Global measurements of stratospheric mountain waves from space. Science, 286: 1534–1537
Fritts D C, Alexander M J. 2003. Gravity wave dynamics and effects in the middle atmosphere. Rev Geophys, 41: 1003
Hei H, Tsuda T, Hirooka T. 2008. Characteristics of atmospheric gravity wave activity in the polar regions revealed by GPS radio occultation data with CHAMP. J Geophys Res, 113: D04107
Hendricks E A, Doyle J D, Eckermann S D, Jiang Q, Reinecke P A. 2014. What is the source of the stratospheric gravity wave belt in austral winter? J Atmos Sci, 71: 1583–1592
Hindley N P, Wright C J, Smith N D, Mitchell N J. 2015. The southern stratospheric gravity wave hot spot: individual waves and their momentum fluxes measured by COSMIC GPS-RO. Atmos Chem Phys, 15: 7797–7818
Huang R H, Chen J Z. 2002. Geotropic adaptation process and excitement of inertial-gravity waves in the stratospheric spherical atmosphere (in Chinese). Chin J Atmos Sci, 26: 289–303
Jiang J H, Wang B, Goya K, Hocke K, Eckermann S D, Ma J, Wu D L, Read W G. 2004. Geographical distribution and interseasonal variability of tropical deep convection: UARS MLS observations and analyses. J Geophys Res, 109: D03111
Khaykin S M, Hauchecorne A, Mzé N, Keckhut P. 2015. Seasonal variation of gravity wave activity at midlatitudes from 7 years of COSMIC GPS and Rayleigh lidar temperature observations. Geophys Res Lett, 42: 1251–1258
Liang C, Xue X H, Chen T D. 2014. An investigation of the global morphology of stratosphere gravity waves based on COSMIC observations (in Chinese). Chin J Geophys, 57: 3668–3678
Lange M, Jacobi C. 2003. Analysis of gravity waves from radio occultation measurements. In: First CHAMP Mission Results for Gravity, Magnetic and Atmospheric Studies. Berlin: Springer. 479–484
Namboothiri S P, Jiang J H, Kishore P, Igarashi K, Ao C O, Romans L J. 2008. CHAMP observations of global gravity wave fields in the troposphere and stratosphere. J Geophys Res, 113: D07102
Nappo C J. 2013. An Introduction to Atmospheric Gravity Waves. Manhattan: Academic Press
Preusse P, Ern M, Bechtold P, Eckermann S D, Kalisch S, Trinh Q T, Riese M. 2014. Characteristics of gravity waves resolved by ECMWF. Atmos Chem Phys, 14: 10483–10508
Ratnam M V, Tetzlaff G, Jacobi C. 2004. Global and seasonal variations of stratospheric gravity wave activity deduced from the CHAMP/GPS satellite. J Atmos Sci, 61: 1610–1620
Šácha P, Kuchař A, Jacobi C, Pišoft P. 2015. Enhanced internal gravity wave activity and breaking over the northeastern Pacific-eastern Asian region. Atmos Chem Phys, 15: 13097–13112
Schroeder S, Preusse P, Ern M, Riese M. 2009. Gravity waves resolved in ECMWF and measured by SABER. Geophys Res Lett, 36: L10805
Tsuda T, Nishida M, Rocken C, Ware R H. 2000. A global morphology of gravity wave activity in the stratosphere revealed by the GPS occultation data (GPS/MET). J Geophys Res, 105: 7257–7273
Tsuda T, Venkat Ratnam M, Alexander S P, Kozu T, Takayabu Y. 2009. Temporal and spatial distributions of atmospheric wave energy in the equatorial stratosphere revealed by GPS radio occultation temperature data obtained with the CHAMP satellite during 2001–2006. Earth Planets Space, 61: 525–533
Uccellini L W, Koch S E. 1987. The synoptic setting and possible energy sources for mesoscale wave disturbances. Mon Weather Rev, 115: 721–729
Wang W, Liu J, Cai X J. 2011. Impact of mesoscale gravity waves on a heavy rainfall event in the east side of the Tibetan Plateau (in Chinese). Trans Atmos Sci, 34: 737–747
Wei D, Tian W S, Chen Z Y, et al. 2016. Upward transport of air mass during a generation of orographic waves in the UTLS over the Tibetan Plateau (in Chinese). Chin J Geophys, 59: 791–802
Wright C J, Gille J C. 2013. Detecting overlapping gravity waves using the S-Transform. Geophys Res Lett, 40: 1850–1855
Yi F. 1997. Gravity waves in the middle and upper atmospheres (in Chinese). Bull Nati Sci Found China, 3: 012
Zhang L J, Lin Y H. 2012. Observational characteristics of gravity waves in lower stratosphere over a Tibetan Plateau station (in Chinese). Meteorol Sci Technol, 39: 768–771
Zhang S D, Yi F, Wang J F. 1999. The nonlinear propagation of gravity wave packets in the sheared ambient (in Chinese). Chin J Space Sci, 19: 122–127
Acknowledgments
We acknowledge the data used in this paper from the COSMIC data provided by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)/COSMIC Data Analysis and Archive Center (CDAAC) scientific team (http://cdaac-www.cosmic.ucar.edu/cdaac/). This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41322029, 41474129 & 41421063), the Project of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant Nos. KJCX2-EW-J01 & KZZD-EW-0101), Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. 2011324) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zeng, X., Xue, X., Dou, X. et al. COSMIC GPS observations of topographic gravity waves in the stratosphere around the Tibetan Plateau. Sci. China Earth Sci. 60, 188–197 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-016-0065-6
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-016-0065-6