85th AMS Annual Meeting

Tuesday, 11 January 2005
Vertically Propagating Waves in the Lower Atmosphere Influenced by Solar Forcing?
Alfred M. Powell Jr., NOAA, Camp Springs, MD; and M. Chen
A diagnostic analysis was undertaken to determine whether vertically propagating tropospheric and stratospheric phenomena could be influenced by solar forcing. The analysis used the temperature and wind fields in the National Center for Environmental Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP/NCAR) Reanalysis Data. The solar radio flux (10.7 cm) was used as the proxy for solar short wave output since observed values were available daily for the entire 50 plus year record of the Reanalysis Data. Vertically propagating wave phenomena were observed in the analysis. The vertical wave propagation appears to be in-phase with solar radio flux measurements that vary due to solar rotation and the growth/decay of solar active regions which influence solar output, particularly in the wavelengths shorter than the visible spectrum. Changes in the atmospheric vertical wave propagation were also coincident with subtle atmospheric stability changes. A summary of the association between the vertically propagating waves, atmospheric stability and solar radio flux measurements is presented.

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