Mesoscale processes in the stratosphere, European Communities Air Pollution Research Report, No. 69, K. S. Carslaw and G. T. Amanatidis eds., 217-222, 1999
Mountain lee waves over South America - a case study on the sensitivity to short spatial scales

P. Preusse, B. Schaeler, D. Offerman
Department of Physics, University of Wuppertal, Gauss-Str. 20, D-42097 Wuppertal, Germany

S. D. Eckermann
E. O. Hulburt Center for Space Research, Code 7641.2, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375

Abstract.

The CRISTA instrument was designed to measure global data sets of temperature and trace gases with high spatial resolution. The first CRISTA flight occurred during early November 1994. During this seven day mission CRISTA took 50000 height profiles. The vertical sampling of most of these profiles was 1.5 km. Fast helium cooled infrared detectors allow measurements of high precision and the narrow field of view is well suited to resolving small vertical structures. Thus, it is possible to deduce amplitudes of small spatial scale waves from the CRISTA data. Temperature profiles measured in the lee of the Andes are discussed in terms of vertical and horizontal wavelength. As predicted from two-dimensional radiance calculations, horizontal wavelengths of the order of the weighting function are detectable by the CRISTA instrument. Evidence is found that waves with even shorter horizontal wavelength can be measured.

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Additional Links Of Interest:

CRISTA Homepage.
CRISTA-2 special session at the 1999 Fall AGU Meeting
STS-66 Mission Page (CRISTA-SPAS Mission 1).
STS-85 Mission Page (CRISTA-SPAS Mission 2).
MEPS Conference