Additional Radiative Cooling of the Mesopause Region due to Small-Scale Temperature Fluctuations Associated with Gravity Waves

Details Additional Radiative Cooling of the Mesopause Region due to Small-Scale Temperature Fluctuations Associated with Gravity Waves Additional Radiative Cooling of the Mesopause Region due to Small-Scale Temperature Fluctuations Associated with Gravity Waves

May 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008agusmsa54a..01k&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2008, abstract #SA54A-01

Physics

3334 Middle Atmosphere Dynamics (0341, 0342), 3359 Radiative Processes

Scientific paper

We address a previously unknown effect of the radiative cooling of the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) produced by small-scale irregular temperature fluctuations (ITFs) associated with gravity waves. These disturbances are not resolved by present GCMs, but they alter the radiative transfer and the heating/cooling rates significantly. We apply a statistical model of gravity waves superimposed on large-scale temperature profiles, and perform direct calculations of the radiative cooling/heating in the MLT in the IR bands of CO2, O3 and H2O molecules taking into account the breakdown of the local thermodynamic equilibrium (non-LTE). We found that in the periods of strong wave activity the subgrid ITFs can cause an additional cooling up to 3 K/day near the mesopause. The effect is produced mainly by the fundamental 15 μm band of the main CO2 isotope. We derived a simple expression for the correction to mean (resolved by GCMs) temperature profiles using the variance of the temperature perturbations to account for the additional cooling effect. The suggested parameterization can be applied in GCMs in conjunction with existing gravity wave drag parameterizations.

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