Europlanet Science Congress 2020
Virtual meeting
21 September – 9 October 2020
Europlanet Science Congress 2020
Virtual meeting
21 September – 9 October 2020
EPSC Abstracts
Vol. 14, EPSC2020-639, 2020
https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2020-639
Europlanet Science Congress 2020
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Wavelet analysis of gravity waves on Venus using radio occultation temperature profiles

Takeshi Imamura1, Ryota Mori1, Hiroki Ando2, Javier Peralta3, Bernd Häusler4, Martin Pätzold5, and Silvia Tellmann5
Takeshi Imamura et al.
  • 1The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Japan
  • 2Kyoto Sangyo University, Kyoto, Japan
  • 3Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Sagamihara, Japan
  • 4Universität der Bundeswehr München, Germany
  • 5Universität zu Köln, Germany

Atmospheric gravity waves are thought to play crucial roles in transporting momentum and energy in planetary atmospheres. They are frequently observed as localized quasi-monochromatic wave packets in cloud images, while the vertical structures of the wave packets have not been investigated. The wavelengths and the packet lengths should reflect the generation processes of the respective wave packets. Though wave packets are thought to propagate independently, they are superposed on each other to induce an unstable field. The statistical characteristics of wave packets need to be known to understand the roles of the waves in the development of the atmospheric structure.
 We study the characteristics of gravity wave packets in Venus’s atmosphere using high vertical resolution temperature profiles obtained by Venus Express and Akatsuki radio occultation experiments with radio holographic methods (Imamura et al. 2018). Localized disturbances are extracted by applying wavelet transform to the vertical temperature distributions. The analysis showed that (1) wave packets having different wavelengths are overlapped with each other, (2) each wave packet typically includes <3 cycles, (3) waves with vertical wavelengths of ~1 km are frequently seen,(4) individual wave packets are hardly saturating in isolation, while saturation occurs as a result of superposition of wave packets, and (4) short-vertical wavelength waves are more frequently observed at lower altitudes.

How to cite: Imamura, T., Mori, R., Ando, H., Peralta, J., Häusler, B., Pätzold, M., and Tellmann, S.: Wavelet analysis of gravity waves on Venus using radio occultation temperature profiles, Europlanet Science Congress 2020, online, 21 Sep–9 Oct 2020, EPSC2020-639, https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2020-639, 2020.