SA008-0008
Gravity Wave Study in the MLT using ICON-MIGHTI Temperature and Wind Observations

Wednesday, 9 December 2020
Poster
Shreya Nagpal1,2, Chihoko Y Cullens1,2, Scott England3, Colin Charles Triplett4, Gary R Swenson5, Brentha Thurairajah6, Brian Joseph Harding1,2, Jonathan J Makela7, Michael H Stevens8, Christoph R Englert8, John Harlander9, Kenneth David Marr8 and Thomas J Immel1,4, (1)Space Sciences Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, United States, (2)University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States, (3)Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Aerospace and Ocean Engineering, Virginia, VA, United States, (4)University of California, Berkeley, Space Sciences Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, United States, (5)University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Urbana, IL, United States, (6)Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, United States, (7)University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Urbana, IL, United States, (8)Naval Research Lab DC, Space Science Division, Washington, DC, United States, (9)Saint Cloud State University, St Cloud, MN, United States
Abstract:
Atmospheric gravity waves have important roles in driving atmospheric coupling
processes from the lower atmosphere to the mesosphere, thermosphere, and ionosphere.
NASA’s Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) satellite was launched on 10 October 2019
and has been observing atmospheric temperatures and winds in the latitude range of 10S-40N.
Michelson Interferometer for Global High-resolution Thermospheric Imaging (MIGHTI) is one
of the instruments on ICON measuring temperatures and winds. Using both temperature and
wind measurements from ICON-MIGHTI observations, small-scale perturbations (<
wavenumber 6) are extracted and analyzed in the altitude range of 90-105 km and are considered
to be gravity waves in this work. Obtained gravity waves will be compared to other satellite
observations including TIMED/SABER. Vertical profiles of ICON-MIGHTI winds and
temperatures are further analyzed to study instabilities including Richardson numbers and Brunt
Vaisala frequency. Relationship between these instabilities and gravity waves will also be briefly
discussed in this work.
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