Quasi-2-day wave in low-latitude atmospheric winds as viewed from the
ground and space during January-March, 2020
Abstract
Horizontal winds from four low-latitude (+/-15o) specular meteor radars
(SMRs) and the MIGHTI instrument on the ICON satellite, are combined to
investigate quasi-2-day waves (Q2DWs) in early 2020. SMRs cover 80-100
km altitude whereas MIGHTI covers 95-300 km. Q2DWs are the largest
dynamical feature of the summertime middle atmosphere. At the
overlapping altitudes, comparisons between the derived Q2DWs exhibit
excellent agreement. The SMR sensor array analyses show that the
dominant zonal wavenumbers are s=+2 and +3, and help resolve ambiguities
in MIGHTI results. We present the first Q2DW depiction for s=+3 up to
200 km and for $s=+2$ above 95 km, and show that their amplitudes are
almost invariant between 80 and 100 km. Above 106 km, Q2DW amplitudes
and phases present structures that might result from the superposition
of Q2DWs and their aliased secondary waves.