Multi-Scale Gravity Wave Dynamics: Implications for Instabilities, Turbulence, and Mixing Throughout the Atmosphere

Multi-scale (MS) dynamics arising from superpositions of gravity waves (GWs) and other motions are ubiquitous throughout the stratified atmosphere and other stratified and sheared fluids. In the atmosphere, MS GW dynamics occur on spatial scales increasing from 10's of meters in the stable boundary layer to 10's of km in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere. Associated instabilities and turbulence extend these dynamics, and their influences, to the smallest scales of motion allowed by viscosity. The consequences of these MS dynamics are strong wave-wave interactions that drive episodic local instability dynamics and associated turbulence and mixing events that have profound influences on energy and momentum transport and deposition. These various dynamics strongly influence the evolution of the GW spectrum throughout the atmosphere.