Visualization and Analysis of Simulated Atmospheric Gravity Wave Data

Adeel Haroon

Mentor:  Professor Victor Pasko

 

            My research project deals with the phenomenon of gravity waves.   On very large scales, the atmosphere acts much like an incompressible fluid. Traveling mechanical waves of low frequency and large wavelength occur as a result of buoyant air motion—these "Gravity Waves" typically have wavelengths spanning tens of kilometers and periods greater than 5 minutes. It is now well known that gravity waves generated by convective sources (e.g., thunderstorms) at tropospheric altitudes represent significant sources of energy and momentum depositions and turbulence generation at mesospheric altitudes. Waves originally generated in troposphere grow considerably by the time they reach mesospheric altitudes and are able to sufficiently affect motions in the upper atmosphere.  I will be developing visualization tools for these gravity waves in the program, MATLAB.  From this data, properties such as velocity, temperature, pressure, and relative density can be further studied. It will also extract spectral properties of wave number and frequency. This is helpful in understanding nonlinear behavior. Using a sequence of output data, the spectral evolution of the system over time can be followed. We can also use the spectral data to specify image filters to isolate specific phenomena.