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- Title
Signatures of gravity wave-induced instabilities in balloon lidar soundings of polar mesospheric clouds.
- Authors
Kaifler, Natalie; Kaifler, Bernd; Rapp, Markus; Fritts, David C.
- Abstract
The Balloon Lidar Experiment (BOLIDE), which was part of the Polar Mesospheric Cloud Turbulence (PMC Turbo) Balloon Mission has captured vertical profiles of PMCs during a 6 d flight along the Arctic circle in July 2018. The high-resolution soundings (20 m vertical and 10 s temporal resolution) reveal highly structured layers with large gradients in the volume backscatter coefficient. We systematically screen the BOLIDE dataset for small-scale variability by assessing these gradients at high resolution. We find longer tails of the probability density distributions of these gradients compared to a normal distribution, indicating intermittent behaviour. The high occurrence rate of large gradients is assessed in relation to the 15 min averaged layer brightness and the spectral power of short-period (5–62 min) gravity waves based on PMC layer altitude variations. We find that variability on small scales occurs during weak, moderate, and strong gravity wave activity. Layers with below-average brightness are less likely to show small-scale variability in conditions of strong gravity wave activity. We present and discuss the signatures of this small-scale variability, and possibly related dynamical processes, and identify potential cases for future case studies and modelling efforts.
- Subjects
NOCTILUCENT clouds; GRAVITY waves; LIDAR; GRAVITY; GAUSSIAN distribution
- Publication
Atmospheric Chemistry & Physics, 2023, Vol 23, Issue 2, p949
- ISSN
1680-7316
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.5194/acp-23-949-2023