The Relationship Between Turbulence Generation and Gravity Waves in the Mesopause Region at Andes Lidar observatory

Abstract:

We report a structure function analysis (SFA) on high-resolution temperature and winds measurements obtained with a Na Lidar at Andes Lidar Observatory (ALO, 30.2 ̊S,70.7 ̊W). The 3^rd order SFA can indicate the energy cascade direction. It can help to improve the understanding of gravity wave and turbulence generation mechanism in upper atmosphere. We also apply this approach to meteor Radar data located around ALO to identify the scale interactions of different scale gravity waves. Compared with Lidar data, meteor Radar data has lower resolution. However, Radar data is continuous. Radar data can review waves with periods larger than 8 hours.