Quantification of gravity wave drag in ERA5 reanalysis

Internal gravity waves (GWs) are a ubiquitous component of atmospheric dynamics, propagating both horizontally and vertically through the atmosphere, interacting with other flow components and affecting regional to large-scale dynamics. Due to the wide spectrum of GWs, model dynamics in general circulation models (GCMs) can resolve only part of the spectrum, leaving the effects of the unresolved part to be inserted by parametrisations. The analysis of high-resolution atmospheric datasets with resolved GWs allows us to understand GW dynamics and their effects on the mean flow, even in the long-term time-scales. In addition to this, such analysis enables validation of the parametrised effects and potential improvements of the parametrisations. In the presented work, we analyse resolved GWs in the ECMWF‘s ERA5 reanalysis, evaluating their effects on the flow through the GW drag.