Parameters of the fine density structure in the stratosphere obtained from spacecraft observations of stellar scintillations

[1] Measurements of stellar scintillations caused by the atmosphere, conducted on board the space station Mir, are analyzed here. From scintillation spectra we obtained the parameters of spatial spectra of atmospheric density fluctuations (the altitudes 20–70 km) with vertical scales from hundreds of meters to tens of centimeters. The observed characteristic scales of atmospheric inhomogeneities are interpreted with a nonlinear model of internal wave spectrum and a theory of locally homogeneous and isotropic turbulence.

[1]  R. Sica.  Measurements of the Effects of Gravity Waves in the Middle Atmosphere Using Parametric Models of Density Fluctuations. Part II: Energy Dissipation and Eddy Diffusion , 1999 .

[2]  C. Hines.  Theory of the Eulerian tail in the spectra of atmospheric and oceanic internal gravity waves , 2001, Journal of Fluid Mechanics.

[3]  C. Hostetler,et al.  Observations of horizontal and vertical wave number spectra of gravity wave motions in the stratosphere and mesosphere over the mid‐Pacific , 1994 .

[4]  R. Akmaev.  Simulation of large‐scale dynamics in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere with the Doppler‐spread parameterization of gravity waves: 1. Implementation and zonal mean climatologies , 2001 .

[5]  Allan I. Carswell,et al.  Rayleigh Lidar Observations of Thermal Structure and Gravity Wave Activity in the High Arctic during a Stratospheric Warming , 1994 .

[6]  R. Joseph,et al.  A canonical statistical theory of oceanic internal waves , 1989, Journal of Fluid Mechanics.

[7]  A. Gurvich,et al.  Study of the turbulence and inner waves in the stratosphere based on the observations of stellar scintillations from space: A model of scintillation spectra , 2001 .

[8]  I. Chunchuzov.  On the High-Wavenumber Form of the Eulerian Internal Wave Spectrum in the Atmosphere. , 2002 .

[9]  Steve Smith,et al.  Evidence for a Saturated Spectrum of Atmospheric Gravity Waves. , 1987 .

[10]  S. Eckermann.  Isentropic advection by gravity waves: Quasi‐universal M−3 vertical wavenumber spectra near the onset of instability , 1999 .