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Secondary Gravity Waves Generated By Breaking Mountain Waves Over Europe, Christopher J. Heale, Jonathan B. Snively, Katrina Bossert, S. L. Vadas, Lars Hoffmann, A. Dörnbrack, G. Stober, C. Jacobi
Secondary Gravity Waves Generated By Breaking Mountain Waves Over Europe, Christopher J. Heale, Jonathan B. Snively, Katrina Bossert, S. L. Vadas, Lars Hoffmann, A. Dörnbrack, G. Stober, C. Jacobi
Publications
A strong mountain wave, observed over Central Europe on 12 January 2016, is simulated in 2D under two fixed background wind conditions representing opposite tidal phases. The aim of the simulation is to investigate the breaking of the mountain wave and subsequent generation of nonprimary waves in the upper atmosphere. The model results show that the mountain wave first breaks as it approaches a mesospheric critical level creating turbulence on horizontal scales of 8–30 km. These turbulence scales couple directly to horizontal secondary waves scales, but those scales are prevented from reaching the thermosphere by the tidal winds, which act …