ACPD Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions ACPD 1680-7375 Copernicus GmbH Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/acpd-11-14221-2011 Observations of in-situ generated gravity waves during a stratospheric temperature enhancement (STE) event Gerrard A. J. 1 Bhattacharya Y. 1 Thayer J. P. 2 Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research, New Jersey Institute of Technology, 323 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, 101 Tiernan Hall, Newark, NJ 07102-1982, USA Aerospace Engineering Sciences, University of Colorado, 429 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309-0429, USA 09 05 2011 11 5 14221 14232 This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This article is available from http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/11/14221/2011/acpd-11-14221-2011.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/11/14221/2011/acpd-11-14221-2011.pdf

Observations of in-situ generated atmospheric gravity waves associated with a stratospheric temperature enhancement (STE) are presented. Two sets of gravity waves are observed by molecular-aerosol lidar in conjunction with the early December 2000 STE event above Sondrestrom, Greenland. The first set of gravity waves shows downward phase progression with a vertical wavelength of ~8 km while the second set shows upward phase progression with a vertical wavelength of ~9 km. With estimates of the background wind fields from synoptic analyses, the various intrinsic gravity wave parameters of these two wave structures are found. The observed waves compare well to numerical modeling predictions, though the potential observation of a downward propagating wave would be unexpected.

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