High-resolution nested UA-ICON simulation compared to mesospheric observations of the NASA VortEx campaign at ALOMAR

We carry out high-resolution nested simulations over Andøya (ALOMAR) with UA-ICON to compare and interpret observational data in the mesosphere collected during the NASA VortEx sounding rocket campaign in March 2023.

We apply UA-ICON with 250 levels and a model top at 150 km at a global horizontal resolution of R2B7 (~20 km) with subsequent one-way nesting with nests at R2B8 (~10 km), R2B9 (~5 km), R2B10 (~2.5 km) and R2B11 (~1.25 km) horizontal resolution. For the global domain, the dynamic situation during the campaign is specified (specified dynamics, SD) by nudging to ECMWF operational analyses up to an altitude of 50 km. At the 1.25 km resolution, UA-ICON resolves a substantial fraction of the GW spectrum. Therefore, GW parameterizations are turned off at this resolution to isolate the effects of resolved GWs.

The Rayleigh-Mie-Raman (RMR) lidars, operated by IAP in Kühlungsborn, Germany, and at ALOMAR on Andøya, Norway, support the VortEx campaign through observations of temperatures and winds up to about 80 km by providing detailed information about GW activity including vertical wavelengths.

We present first comparison results between the high-resolution nested UA-ICON simulation and the RMR observations for the VortEx campaign in March 2023.

The emphasis is on estimating the vertical energy spectra of resolved gravity waves for the different grid refinements, compared to vertical energy spectra from the lidar observations.