ACPD Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions ACPD 1680-7375 Copernicus GmbH Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/acpd-5-11029-2005 Wind-profiler observations of gravity waves produced by convection at mid-latitudes Choi Y. G. 1 Lee S. C. 2 McDonald A. J. 3 Hooper D. A. 4 Geophysical Prospecting Laboratory, Seoul National University, Korea Department of Physics, Kangnung National University, Korea Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Didcot, Oxon, OX11 0QX, UK 01 11 2005 5 6 11029 11054 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/5/11029/2005/acpd-5-11029-2005.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/5/11029/2005/acpd-5-11029-2005.pdf

This work presents a case study which includes regions of large rapidly varying vertical velocities observed by a VHF wind-profiler at Aberystwyth (52.4&deg; N, 4.1&deg; W). Analysis indicates that this region is associated with gravity waves above the tropopause level and simultaneous regions of convective activity below the tropopause level. This case study also suggests that convective activity can be identified effectively by finding periods of large uncertainties on the derived velocities. These regions are hypothesized to be related to regions of small-scale inhomogeneity in the wind field. <br><br> Examination suggests that the large vertical velocity fluctuations above these convective regions are short period gravity wave packets as expected from theory. In addition the vertical flux of the horizontal momentum associated with the gravity waves also displays the pattern of reversal observed in previous studies.