Tidal wave gif movie#

However, there are features in the measurements that remain unresolved by current numerical models based on either mechanistic approaches or first principles.

Further, salient features of observational signatures agree with predictions of the mechanistic migrating tide models. These results confirm that tides often govern the dynamics of that region.

Ground-based and satellite-borne wind and temperature measurements reveal the strength and the variability of tidal signatures in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT ~80-120km). These tides have been studied extensively with mechanistic models for more than 30 years. The animation above illustrates this characteristic: see how a point on the Earth passes 'underneath' the migrating tide, just as it passes 'underneath' the rays of the sun through the day. Seasonal variations in migrating tides occur as the Earth tilts within this pattern. Their variation in time to an observer on Earth results from the Earth's rotation through this fixed excitation pattern. It may not be immediately apparent from this description, but the migrating tides do not move relative to the sun, and they therefore act as a steady influence on the atmosphere.

Tidal wave gif movie#

Movie of GSWM migrating diurnal temperature These components are thermally driven by the periodic absorption of solar radiation throughout the atmosphere, primarily the absorption of UV radiation by stratospheric ozone and of IR by water and water vapor in the troposphere.

Migrating tidal components propagate westward with the apparent motion of the sun, so their zonal wavenumbers are identical to their frequency (in units of 'tide maxima per day'). Atmospheric solar tides are global-scale waves with periods that are harmonics of a 24 hour day.