Atmospheric Gravity Wave Events in Antarctica

• Main Author: Wrobel, America
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: DigitalCommons@USU 2018
• Subjects: Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/researchweek/ResearchWeek2018/All2018/29; https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1616&context=researchweek

An all-sky IR camera placed at McMurdo, Antarctica (77˚83' S, 166˚61' E) took one picture every ten seconds for the months of April through September in 2012 and 2013. The data was first visually analyzed to distinguish clear sky periods of at least four hours. The best nights were selected to run through a series of software analyses. First, the background stars were removed from the images. Second, a mean image was created for the night. Third, the images were flat fielded, calibrated, and unwarped. These steps prepared the data to be input into a 3D spectral analysis IDL program (Matsuda, et al., 2014), which output graphs quantifying horizontal phase velocity distributions of gravity waves over Antarctica. The graphs could then be analyzed to determine any correlation between gravity wave events.