NSF Award
2431737
This project aims to investigate relative contributions of different sources to the observed large-scale gravity waves (GWs) in the thermosphere and their impacts on tides, planetary waves (PWs), and circulations. Atmospheric waves are important drivers for coupling between different layers of the atmosphere. It has been also recognized that gravity waves can also propagate into the thermosphere and impact the ionosphere. These GWs can affect tides and planetary waves, and large-scale waves also affect the propagation or dissipation of GWs, resulting in the impacts on the ionospheric variability. However, quantitative understanding of importance of lower atmospheric GW sources in the thermosphere/ionosphere and their impacts on dynamics, including interaction with tides/PWs and changes in circulations, are still missing. Advancing knowledge of GW sources and their interaction with tides will improve our understanding of coupling processes and the lower atmospheric influences on space weather forecast, which are great interest to our society because of satellite communications and GPS accuracy. This work will improve our understanding of GWs in coupling processes, GW sources and their impacts on the ionospheric variability. and the lower atmospheric influences on space weather forecast. This work will support undergraduate students and two women scientists.<br/><br/>The team will conduct controlled simulations to isolate GW sources from below (i.e. from the troposphere) and above the stratosphere. Then, relative contributions of these sources to the observed large-scale GWs in the thermosphere and their impacts on tides, PW, and circulations will be investigated. This project will use the Specified-Dynamics Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model with Thermosphere and Ionosphere Extension (SD-WACCM-X) simulations and satellite observations (ICON-MIGHTI and TIMED-SABER) from 30 km to 250 km altitudes. Using these observations and simulations, this project aims to answer the following science questions: (1) What are the relative contributions of GW sources from the lower atmosphere and above the stratosphere/mesosphere to thermospheric GWs? (2) What are the impacts of large-scale GWs on wind structure and circulations? and (3) How do large-scale GWs impact atmospheric tides and PWs?<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
