Gravity waves generated by thunderstorms: South-East Asia tropical region study

Gravity waves are recognized as an integral part of earth’s atmosphere which are mainly responsible for energy and momentum distribution among different layers and regions in the atmosphere. Various sources present in land, ocean, and atmosphere such as mountains, convection, jets and fronts etc. are responsible for gravity waves generation. Thunderstorms (deep convection) are one of the major sources of gravity waves in the tropical region, capable of generating waves with a wide range of frequencies and scales and significantly affecting the existing waves. Previous numerical studies have characterised the wave properties that are generated from thunderstorms, but there are no statistically quantified studies. In this paper, we have modelled the relationship between the latent heat generated inside a thunderstorm and the gravity wave properties at the geo-collocated points. Gravity waves are identified over Singapore radiosonde station (with data available until 30?km altitude with 12?h temporal resolution) in the stratosphere using wavelet studies. Based on the GROGRAT ray tracing methods to identify the thunderstorm locations, and RAMS cloud-resolving models simulations to obtain the latent heating of the thunderstorm, a regression analysis is performed using 200 cases of gravity waves. Furthermore, cloud-top momentum flux analysis is performed for various cases latent heat. This study is expected to provide more quantified and concrete information on the coupling between the thunderstorm and gravity wave which includes the variance in these relationships due to wave frequency spectrum and generation mechanisms.