Analysis of the Global Distribution of the Atmospheric Gravity Wave Parameters Using COSMIC Radio Occultation Data

This paper introduces a method to retrieve the vertical and the horizontal wavelength, the potential energy and the momentum flux of the gravity waves in the atmosphere from single temperature profiles. Using GPS RO dry temperature profiles from the COSMIC mission, we obtain the global distributions of the gravity wave parameters during the summer and winter of 2007 to 2008, regarded as the characteristics of the mesoscale atomosphere gravity wave activities. Our results show that the distribution form of the gravity wave is in good agreement with those found in the latest references. Our study shows that at the altitudes of 20~30 km, the atmospheric gravity wave activities are apparently stronger in NH winters than in NH summers. Gravity wave activities have zonal distribution characteristics. In the high latitudes of the hemisphere during summer, gravity wave activities have significant seasonal variations. Gravity wave activities are affected by topography and convections. The distributions of the momentum flux and potential energy derived from COSMIC RO data show similar characteristics.