Evidence of the formation of noctilucent clouds due to propagation of an isolated gravity wave caused by a tropospheric occluded front

Peter A. Dalin, A. I. Pogoreltsev, N. N. Pertsev, V. I. Perminov, Nikita Shevchuk, A. Dubietis, Mark S. Zalcik, S. Kulikov, Alexander M. Zadorozhny, D. Kudabayeva

3 more authors

A. A. Solodovnik, G. Kh. Salakhutdinov, I. G. Grigoryeva

Geophysical Research Letters, 2015

Closed access Metadata (CSL-JSON)

DOI 10.1002/2014gl062776

Data confidence 70 medium

How this score is calculated

It is built from checkable properties of the record itself: whether the article has a DOI, how many independent sources confirmed its data, whether the required fields are filled in, and how recent the latest confirmation is. Disagreement between sources and a missing identifier lower it. A value of 80 or above means the record was published without further checking; 60 to 79 means it is published at reduced confidence, with a manual check advisable. A record verified by an editor by hand is never pushed below 90 by a recalculation. This scores our data about the article, not the article itself.

Abstract

Abstract We consider a unique case of a propagating internal gravity wave that has generated in situ a compact and thin layer of noctilucent clouds (NLC) at 82.7–85.2 km with a characteristic horizontal scale of 65–70 km, as observed in the Moscow region on the night of 18–19 July 2013. This particular transient isolated gravity wave together with the whole NLC layer suddenly appeared in the clear twilight sky and lasted about 1 h traveling eastward, which differs significantly from previously observed cases of gravity waves propagating through preexisting NLC layers. Our model studies demonstrate that the wave had a tropospheric source connected to the passage of an occluded front. The wave was likely generated due to strong horizontal wind shears at about 5 km altitude.