Gravity Wave Activity in the Stratosphere and Mesosphere at the South Pole (2024)

FAQs

What are gravity waves in the mesosphere? ›

Gravity waves in the atmosphere are the waves with gravity and buoyancy force as the restoring forces. Gravity waves will significantly impact the Mesosphere Lower / Thermosphere (MLT), and the breaking of gravity waves is the key factor to cause the cool summer and warm winter in the Mesopause region.

The ozone layer within the stratosphere also absorbs a lot of solar radiation and reemits it. So, the temperature does increase with altitude through the stratosphere, but begins to decrease again at the top of the stratopause and throughout the mesosphere above it.

Above the stratosphere is the mesosphere. It extends upward to a height of about 85 km (53 miles) above our planet. Most meteors burn up in the mesosphere. Unlike the stratosphere, temperatures once again grow colder as you rise up through the mesosphere.

Temperature increases as you gain altitude in the stratosphere and the thermosphere. Temperature decreases as you gain altitude in the troposphere and mesosphere. Air temperature varies in complicated ways with altitude.

In the middle stratosphere (30–40 km), there is higher gravity wave activity near the equator in autumn in the middle stratosphere than in other seasons in 2020, and much less in 2021. The gravity wave activity is low (maximum 5 J kg⁻¹) compared to the lower stratosphere (maximum 10 J kg⁻¹).

“Gravitational waves are ripples in spacetime. When objects move, the curvature of spacetime changes and these changes move outwards (like ripples on a pond) as gravitational waves. A gravitational wave is a stretch and squash of space and so can be found by measuring the change in length between two objects.”

The mesosphere is directly above the stratosphere and below the thermosphere. It extends from about 50 to 85 km (31 to 53 miles) above our planet. Temperature decreases with height throughout the mesosphere. The coldest temperatures in Earth's atmosphere, about -90° C (-130° F), are found near the top of this layer.

- Without the mesosphere, meteors would pass through the exosphere and thermosphere without much trouble. In summary, the mesosphere plays a crucial role in protecting life on Earth, regulating temperatures, and allowing meteor showers to light up our skies! ..

The temperature increases in the stratosphere due to the ozone layer being there that captures radiation. The temperature decreases in the next layer, the mesosphere, because there is no ozone layer there for protection + the amount of air in this layer decreases.

The stratopause lies between two layers of the atmosphere namely the stratosphere and mesosphere. It lies at an altitude of 50 km. Thus the correct answer is option C.

Which is colder mesosphere or stratosphere? ›

The top of the mesosphere is the coldest area of the Earth's atmosphere because temperature may locally decrease to as low as 100 K (-173°C).

Answer and Explanation:

In the mesosphere, the temperature decreases slowly with the height from 275 K to 195 K. (b) The altitude of the troposphere is about 18 km from the surface of the Earth. In the troposphere, the temperature decreases gradually as the altitude increase. The minimum temperature is about 215 K.

The stratosphere is the layer in the atmosphere above the troposphere. The stratosphere reaches from the tropopause to a height of about 50 km. Temperature in the stratosphere rises with increasing altitude, because the ozone layer absorbs the greater part of the solar ultraviolet radiation.

A gravity wave is nothing more than a wave moving through a stable layer of the atmosphere. Thunderstorm updrafts will produce gravity waves as they try to punch into the tropopause. The tropopause represents a region of very stable air.

Compact binary inspiral gravitational waves are produced by orbiting pairs of massive and dense ("compact") objects like black holes and neutron stars. There are three subclasses of "compact binary" systems in this category: Binary Neutron Star (BNS) - two neutron stars orbiting each other.

Internal gravity waves are waves occurring in the interior of a stratified fluid, with buoyancy providing the restoring force which opposes vertical displacements. Such waves are ubiquitous in the atmosphere and ocean and are the internal counterpart to the familiar surface gravity waves.