Modeling the Effect of Mesospheric Internal Gravity Waves in the Thermosphere and Ionosphere During the 2009 Sudden Stratospheric Warming

Abstract

The results of numerical experiments on the modeling of thermospheric and ionospheric disturbances under conditions of sudden stratospheric warming are presented to study the possible mechanisms of such disturbances. Local disturbances caused by a planetary wave with zonal wave number s = 1 and internal gravity waves (IGWs) propagating from the disturbed region in the stratosphere are taken into account as sources of disturbances. It is shown that the inclusion of an additional source of thermospheric disturbances caused by mesospheric variations of atmospheric parameters with IGW periods over the region of sudden stratospheric warming leads to significant changes in the parameters of the thermosphere and ionosphere, including a change in the global structure of the distributions of the gas components of the thermosphere and a shift in maximum concentrations of atomic oxygen to low latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere; there is an increase in the mean values, the diurnal and semidiurnal variations of the ion concentration in the F region of the ionosphere. These features of changes in the parameters of the thermosphere and ionosphere occurred with insignificant disturbances of tidal variations in the thermosphere.