A Climatology of Ripple Instabilities in the OH Airglow at Maui, HI

Details A Climatology of Ripple Instabilities in the OH Airglow at Maui, HI A Climatology of Ripple Instabilities in the OH Airglow at Maui, HI

Dec 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011agufmsa31b1974g&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2011, abstract #SA31B-1974

Physics

[3332] Atmospheric Processes / Mesospheric Dynamics

Scientific paper

Airglow imaging provides a unique means by which to study many wave-related phenomena in the 80 to 100 km altitude regime. Observations reveal quasi-monochromatic disturbances associated with atmospheric gravity waves (AGWs) as well as small-scale instabilities often called ripples. Ripples are wavelike features that resemble AGWs in appearance, but have short horizontal wavelengths (<15 km) and short lifetimes (a few tens of minutes). The end product of the breakdown of ripples is turbulence, leading to increased eddy diffusion. Thus, ripple observations may help refine our understanding of the occurrence of turbulence in the upper Mesosphere and Lower Thermosphere. The Aerospace Corporation's Infrared Camera deployed at Maui, HI collected more than 700 nights of airglow images from 2002-2005. The camera measures the OH Meinel (4,2) emission at 1.6 microns using a 1 second exposure at a 3 second cadence, which allows the study of AGW and ripple features over very short temporal and spatial scales. An automated wave detection algorithm was used to identify ripple and quasi monochromatic wave features in the Maui data, including wavelength, wave period and propagation direction. We present a climatology of ripple instabilities at Maui, including comparisons to the background quasi-monochromatic wave field. Lidar and radar data are used to determine the background wind and temperatures, which allows comparisons between ripple observations and evanescent regions and potentially unstable regions identified by Richardson number.

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