Waves and Turbulence in the Stratosphere

Abstract

Detailed stratospheric wind and temperature data were gathered by aircraft over the mountains of southern Colorado on 1 March 1970. In a unique operation, two instrumented RB-57F aircraft flew a total of twelve upwind and downwind legs at altitudes of 13 to 20km,.with an average separation of 600 m. The observational data show that the stratosphere was disturbed by sporadically-turbulent gravity waves of length 20?30 km, which were apparently generated directly or indirectly by the mountainous terrain. Wave amplitudes and turbulence frequency showed a general increase with height up to about 17 km, where they reached a maximum. The maximum amplitude layer was also characterized by a minimum in the mean wind speed. The horizontal and vertical velocity and temperature variances and covariances were evaluated and found to be generally consistent with predictions of linear gravity wave theory. The spectra of horizontal kinetic and potential energy were also calculated and appear to follow a ?3 law over about a decade in wavenumber space. The covariance of the horizontal and vertical velocity perturbations is everywhere negative, with a mean downward momentum flux of about ?2 dyn cm?2. The correlation spectra show that most of this momentum flux is contributed by the long waves.