Height-latitude structure of stationary planetary waves in the stratosphere and lower mesosphere

Abstract

Daily UK Met Office stratospheric assimilated data for the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, accumulated for the period from 2004 to 2012 and pressure range of 1000-0.1 hPa, are used in this paper. The paper presents and thoroughly discusses spatial-temporal distributions of stationary planetary wave (SPW) amplitudes and phases, calculated on the basis of geopotential height, temperature, zonal and meridional wind data for zonal wave numbers 1 and 2 (SPW1 and SPW2). The climatological planetary wave amplitudes and phases are calculated by extracting waves from three types of data: daily, monthly mean and climatological monthly mean. It has been established that magnitude of amplitudes and height-latitude distribution of amplitudes of SPW1 and SPW2 depend on data processing method for all parameters. It has also been established that height-latitude distribution amplitudes and phases significantly differ for geopotential height, temperature, zonal and meridional wind and depend on wave number and hemisphere. However, height-latitude distributions of phases are little different from each other for the used methods of data processing. © 2013 COSPAR.