A case study of a ducted gravity wave event over northern Germany using simultaneous airglow imaging and wind-field observations

Sarkhel, Sumanta; Stober, Gunter; Chau, Jorge L.; Smith, Steven M.; Jacobi, Christoph; Mondal, Subarna; Mlynczak, Martin G.; Russell III, James M.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-40-179-2022

Articles | Volume 40, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-40-179-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-40-179-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 40, issue 2

Regular paper

|

22 Mar 2022

Regular paper |

| 22 Mar 2022

A case study of a ducted gravity wave event over northern Germany using simultaneous airglow imaging and wind-field observations

Sumanta Sarkhel, Gunter Stober, Jorge L. Chau, Steven M. Smith, Christoph Jacobi, Subarna Mondal, Martin G. Mlynczak, and James M. Russell III

Data sets

Simultaneous airglow imaging and two dimensional horizontally resolved wind-field observations over northern Germany S. Sarkhel, J. L. Chau, and S. Mondal https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4925828

Short summary

A rare gravity wave event was observed on the night of 25 April 2017 over northern Germany. An all-sky airglow imager recorded an upward-propagating wave at different altitudes in mesosphere with a prominent wave front above 91 km and faintly observed below. Based on wind and satellite-borne temperature profiles close to the event location, we have found the presence of a leaky thermal duct layer in 85–91 km. The appearance of this duct layer caused the wave amplitudes to diminish below 91 km.