The time and spatial evolution of gravity‐wave characteristics are analysed using wavelets in vertical profiles of temperature and winds at Tromelin Island (15.53°S, 54.31°E) during the passage of the intense tropical cyclone Hudah in the Southern Ocean Indian Basin in 2000. Inertia‐gravity waves were observed in the upper troposphere and the lower stratosphere with dominant vertical wavelengths of 1.5–3 km, horizontal wavelengths <2000 km and periods of 0.6–1.6 days. Large amounts of gravity‐wave energy were detected during landfalls of the tropical cyclone. The distribution of total energy indicates that mesoscale convective structures such as tropical cyclones are important gravity‐wave sources in the upper troposphere.
International audienceThe capabilities of the continuous wavelet transform (CWT) and the multiresolution analysis (MRA) are presented in this work to measure vertical gravity wave characteristics. Wave properties are extracted from the first data set of Rayleigh lidar obtained between heights of 30 km and 60 km over La Reunion Island (21°S, 55°E) during the Austral winter in 1994 under subtropical conditions. The altitude-wavelength representations deduced from these methods provide information on the time and spatial evolution of the wave parameters of the observed dominant modes in vertical profiles such as the vertical wavelengths, the vertical phase speeds, the amplitudes of temperature perturbations and the distribution of wave energy. The spectra derived from measurements show the presence of localized quasi-monochromatic structures with vertical wavelengths <10 km. Three methods based on the wavelet techniques show evidence of a downward phase progression. A first climatology of the dominant modes observed during the Austral winter period reveals a dominant night activity of 2 or 3 quasi-monochromatic structures with vertical wavelengths between 1-2 km from the stratopause, 3-4 km and 6-10 km observed between heights of 30 km and 60 km. In addition, it reveals a dominant activity of modes with a vertical phase speed of -0.3 m/s and observed periods peaking at 3-4 h and 9 h. The characteristics of averaged vertical wavelengths appear to be similar to those observed during winter in the southern equatorial region and in the Northern Hemisphere at mid-latitudes
[1] Tropical cyclone (TC) activity is diagnosed through convective gravity waves (GWs) observed in the upper troposphere (UT)/lower stratosphere (LS) above Tromelin island (15.53°S, 54.31°E) in the tropical southwest Indian Ocean. Monthly and weekly GW total energy densities derived from daily GPS windsonde data are compared with Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR) and TC hours in the vicinity of Tromelin. A relationship between GW energy density and TC activity is observed in the LS, for the TC season 2001/2002. Moreover TCs (local convection) produce GWs with total energy density mostly higher (lower) than 12 J kg −1 . A 10-season climatology (1997/1998-2006/ 2007) confirms that large values of GW total energy density in the LS are associated with weak values of OLR during the TC passage. Monthly total, kinetic and potential GW energy densities within 2000 km radius of Tromelin can be estimated using linear relationships with TC hours for a threshold of above 6 TC days per month. A linear relationship also exists between weekly GW total energy density in the LS and the activity of intense TCs above a threshold of 2 TC days per week within 1000 km radius of Tromelin. GW energy density in the LS could be used as a possible index to investigate TC activity in the UT/LS. Citation: Ibrahim, C., F. Chane-Ming, C. Barthe, and Y. Kuleshov (2010), Diagnosis of tropical cyclone activity through gravity wave energy density in the southwest Indian Ocean, Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L09807,
Abstract.The distribution and the nature of vertical short-scale structures observed in ozone and temperature are investigated in the upper troposphere and the lower stratosphere at La Reunion Island located in the vicinity of the southern subtropical barrier by using wavelet-based methods. A climatology of dominant wavelike patterns with short vertical wavelengths reveals the presence of localized structures on both the ozone and the temperature perturbations, extracted from ozonesonde and temperature data, up to the middle stratosphere. Some case studies are presented to identify the nature of short-scale structures with 1-to 5-km vertical wavelengths in the troposphere and the stratosphere. A climatology of short-scale structures induced by gravity waves and the horizontal advection shows that short-scale structures are mainly detected in the middle and upper troposphere and in the lower stratosphere. The weak value of the coefficient R(z) that links the ozone and temperature perturbations induced by gravity waves is a major limit to detecting such short-scale structures above 21-km altitude. Some structures with vertical wavelengths ranging from 1 to 5 km are attributed to gravity waves produced by convection in summer and the subtropical jet in winter, or quasi-horizontal large-scale motions from both sides of the subtropical barrier. T'(z, t)
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