GRAVITY WAVES AND THE TROPICAL SEA BREEZE

Abstract

The dominant atmospheric pressure oscillations recorded by a microbarovariograph at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are explained as perturbations from internal gravity waves on the sea-breeze interface, aloft. The variograph traces have been analyzed statistically to demonstrate that they give a consistent reaction to the same phenomena. The surface and upper-air data have been utilized to show that the sea breeze is the cause of this consistent pattern. From the combination of these factors, a theoretical picture of the conditions necessary to the propagation of gravity waves on the sea-breeze inversion has been derived.