Waves propogate through all levels of the atmosphere, somewhat analagous to waves in the ocean, and serve to couple the upper and lower atmosphere regions by virtue of the energy and momentum that they carry. Waves known as traveling ionic disturbances originate in the auroral zones and travel globally, while waves known as infrasonde have relatively nearby sources and restricted regional effects. The majority of waves arise from meteorological events and propagate thousands of kilometers and ascend to great height with exponential growth. The work in this project is aimed at developing theoretical understanding of acoustic gravity waves (AGW) in the upper atmosphere with efforts concentrated in five particular areas: 1) participation in the World Acoustic Gravity Wave Study (WAGS), 2) studies of atmospheric waves and turbulence by coherent radars, 3) model computation of AGW propagation in a realistic atmosphere, 4) nonlinear interaction of mesoscale perturbations in the atmosphere, and 5) modeling of the middle atmosphere gravity wave continuum in terms of chaos.
