About the Project
This project is one of a number that are in competition for funding from the NERC Great Western Four+ Doctoral Training Partnership (GW4+ DTP). The GW4+ DTP consists of the Great Western Four alliance of the University of Bath, University of Bristol, Cardiff University and the University of Exeter plus six Research Organisation partners: British Antarctic Survey, British Geological Survey, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, the Met Office, the Natural History Museum and Plymouth Marine Laboratory. The partnership aims to provide a broad training in earth and environmental sciences, designed to train tomorrow’s leaders in earth and environmental science. For further details about the programme please see http://nercgw4plus.ac.uk/
At least 37 fully-funded studentships that encompass the breadth of earth and environmental sciences are being offered to start in September 2017 across the GW4+ DTP.
Main supervisor: Dr Tracy Moffat-Griffin
Co-supervisor(s): Dr Tom Lachlan-Cope (British Antarctic Survey),Dr Andrew Kavanagh (British Antarctic Survey)
Academic supervisor: Prof Nick J Mitchell
Project Description
One of the main science priorities for Antarctica is to understand the global impacts of processes that happen in the Antarctic atmosphere (1). The study of atmospheric gravity waves, tides and planetary waves and their influence on atmospheric global circulation is one thing that can help address this.
The mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT), a region between 50 and 120 km altitude, is a highly dynamic region that couples the lower atmosphere (troposphere and stratosphere) with the upper atmosphere (thermosphere and ionosphere). In this region important upward propagating small-scale gravity waves, thermally forced atmospheric tides and global scale planetary waves are present. These waves are an important dynamical means of vertical coupling through the atmosphere, they transport heat and momentum from the lower atmosphere into the upper atmosphere. In recent years it has been shown that the Antarctic MLT contains a hotspot of gravity wave activity and is also dominated by planetary wave and tide interactions that couple it to the global atmospheric circulation (2). It has also been shown that the Antarctic MLT may be more sensitive to global change than the lower atmosphere (3).
BAS run two airglow spectrometers at Rothera and Halley in Antarctica, which gather wintertime observations of the mesosphere temperature and have been running since 2002. In 2014 the previous Michaelson spectrometers were updated to modern Czerny-Turner spectrometers. The student will work closely with the supervisor in further developing the analysis software for these instruments and also may have the chance to accompany the supervisor to Antarctica to help calibrate them.
The main part of the project will use these data to extract the properties of tides, gravity and planetary waves, including amplitudes and momentum fluxes that are important for assessing their influence on atmospheric circulation. They will also study the long term variation in properties of these three types of atmospheric waves above Rothera and Halley and examine the results for trends linked to changes in the surface climate, the ozone hole strength and solar cycle. The results will also be examined for any response to short-term space weather events.
The student will be part of the Climate Processes group within the Atmosphere, Ice and Climate team at British Antarctic Survey, working under the supervision of Dr Tracy Moffat-Griffin ([Email Address Removed]) and have the benefit of the University of Bath team.
Preferred skills include: Python, IDL, atmospheric physics, statistics
References
1. Mahlon C. Kennicutt, Steven L. Chown, John J. Cassano, Daniela Liggett,
Rob Massom, Lloyd S. Peck, Steve R. Rintoul, John W. V. Storey, David G. Vaughan, Terry J. Wilson and William J. Sutherland, Polar research: six priorities for Antarctic science, Nature 512, 23-25 (06 August 2014), doi:10.1038/512023a
2. Fritts, D. C., D. Janches, H. Iimura, W. K. Hocking, J. V. Bageston, and N. M. P. Leme (2012), Drake Antarctic Agile Meteor Radar first results: Configuration and comparison of mean and tidal wind and gravity wave momentum flux measurements with Southern Argentina Agile Meteor Radar, J. Geophys. Res., 117, D02105, doi:10.1029/2011JD016651.
3.Turner, J., Barrand, N.E., Bracegirdle, T.J., Convey, P., Hodgson, D.A., Jarvis, M., Jenkins, A., Marshall, G., Meredith, M.P., Roscoe, H., Shanklin, J., French, J., Goosse, H., Guglielmin, M., Gutt, J., Jacobs, S., Kennicutt, M.C., Masson-Delmotte, V., Mayewski, P., Navarro, F., Robinson, S., Scambos, T., Sparrow, M., Summerhayes, C., Speer, K. and Klepikov, A. (2013) ‘Antarctic climate change and the environment: an update’, Polar Record, 50(3), pp. 237–259. doi: 10.1017/S0032247413000296.
Continue with Facebook
