- 1Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam, Germany (dimitry.pokhotelov@pik-potsdam.de)
- 2Oeschger Center for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
- 3Institute of Applied Physics, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
- 4Institute of Meteorology and Climatology, BOKU University, Vienna, Austria
- 5Department of Earth and Planetary Science, Kyushu University, Kyushu, Japan
- 6High Altitude Observatory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA
- 7Institute for Meteorology, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany
Long-term observations of mesospheric-lower thermospheric winds from six meteor radars located at middle and polar latitudes in both hemispheres, covering two recent solar cycles, are analysed to construct climatologies of atmospheric tides and gravity waves (GWs). The obtained climatologies of diurnal and semidiurnal tides and GWs are compared to numerical simulations using three general circulation models (GCMs), namely the Ground-to-topside model of Atmosphere and Ionosphere for Aeronomy (GAIA), the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model eXtension - Specified Dynamics (WACCM-X-SD), and the Upper Atmosphere ICOsahedral Non-hydrostatic (UA-ICON) model. Despite of generally good agreement with radar observations, there are substantial differences between the GCMs in reproducing key features of the MLT dynamics, e.g., the hemispheric zonal summer wind reversal. The differences are attributed in particular to sub-grid parameterisations of GWs in GCMs.
How to cite: Pokhotelov, D., Stober, G., Kuchar, A., Liu, H., Liu, H.-L., and Jacobi, C.: Climatologies of MLT winds and waves retrieved from long-term radar observations and GCMs, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-7418, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-7418, 2025.
