Identification of inertia gravity wave sources observed in the troposphere and the lower stratosphere over a tropical station Gadanki

Abstract In the present study, sources for the inertia–gravity waves (IGWs) that are observed in the troposphere and lower stratosphere during different seasons over a tropical station Gadanki (13.5°N, 79.2°E), India, have been identified. For this we have used long-term high resolution radiosonde observations of horizontal winds and temperature during May 2006 to March 2014. The IGW parameters are extracted using Stokes method. Rotary analysis is applied to the wind data to find the vertical direction of propagation. Dominant vertical wavelengths for these waves are obtained from FFT in the altitude domain as well as from apparent frequency method. The vertical and horizontal wavelengths are found to be in the range of 2–5 km (1–3 km) and 500–1500 km (1000–2000 km) in the troposphere (stratosphere), respectively. Using Stokes parameter method we have obtained the statistics of the number of the waves which are monochromatic. GROGRAT model with ERA-Interim data as the background atmosphere is used to identify the terminal (and source) points (sources) for the observed waves. In general, 53% of the waves observed over this location have convection as source and for only 38% of the cases vertical shear in the horizontal wind is identified as a source. For the rest of the 9% of the cases, these two sources are not found to be active.