Submitting Campus

Daytona Beach

Department

Physical Sciences

Document Type

Article

Publication/Presentation Date

11-1-2000

Abstract/Description

We employ a 2-dimensional, time-dependent, fully nonlinear model of minor species in the mesopause region and our Spectral Full-Wave Model to simulate the response of atomic oxygen (O) to a gravity wave packet in the mesopause region. We demonstrate that gravity waves affect the time-averaged distribution of O in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) region through the constituent fluxes the waves induce. Our conclusions are based on simulations of two wave packets that violate the non-acceleration conditions through transience and dissipation. The net cycle-averaged effect of the waves is to significantly increase (by as much as 50%) the O density through downward transport of O at low altitudes (≤90 km), and to deplete (by as much as 20%) the O density above ∼100 km altitude. Comparison with results obtained including only chemistry and diffusion suggests that the effects of gravity wave transport on the distribution of O in this region can be greater than the effects of eddy transport.

Publication Title

Geophysical Research Letters

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1029/2000GL011953

Publisher

American Geophysical Union

Grant or Award Name

NSF ATM-9816159, ATM-9815108 and NASA NAG5-9193

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