Improvement of methods for studying internal gravity waves in the Earth’s atmosphere using radiosonde measurements

Abstract

Abstract Internal gravity waves (IGWs) determine atmospheric dynamics at all heights providing an effective mechanism for the transfer of wave energy and momentum upward from the lower levels. The dynamical (shear) and convective instabilities contribute most to the energy dissipation and saturation of internal waves in the Earth’s atmosphere. The wave saturation assumption is a key point at the radio occultation (RO) investigations of IGWs, therefore, verification of its implementation in the Earth’s atmosphere using radiosonde studies is an important task of atmospheric physics. We propose an upgraded hodograph method based on combined analysis of the velocity and temperature measurements. To achieve the minimal errors in obtained results of reconstructing the internal wave characteristics, the polarization relation between the wave wind speed and temperature variations in the Earth’s atmosphere has been used. It has been shown that the improved method of wind speed hodograph analysis is especially relevant for cases when the intrinsic frequencies of analyzed IGWs noticeably exceed the Coriolis parameter values.