A comparison of gravity wave phase velocities calculated from the impedance equation and pressure data

Abstract

Marked oscillations in wind speed, wind direction and pressure with periods of between 5 and 15 minutes were recorded on a number of occasions and it is assumed that they were produced by atmospheric gravity waves. Gossard and Munk (1954) have shown that the phase velocity of a gravity wave can be calculated using wind and pressure fluctuation data from a single station by means of the “impedance equation”. It is also possible to measure the phase velocity of a gravity wave using an array of microbarovariographs. In this investigation, the phase velocity of gravity waves calculated using these two different methods are compared and the feasibility of deriving wave characteristics from single point measurements is discussed. The results show that, while in a few isolated cases the two velocities agree reasonably well, the application of the impedance equation to data from a single station is limited due to the superposition of local wind systems upon the wave-induced perturbations.