Gravity waves (GWs) are one of the most important coupling mechanisms in the atmosphere. They couple different atmospheric regions both in vertical as well as horizontal direction. The GW-LCycle (Gravity Wave Life Cycle) campaign, taking place in Scandinavia in winter 2015/2016, aims on studying the excitation, propagation, and dissipation of gravity waves. During this campaign the first 3D tomographic measurements of GWs will be performed with the infrared limb imager GLORIA (Gimballed Limb Observer for Radiance Imaging of the Atmosphere) aboard the German research aircraft HALO.

GLORIA is a joint development of the Helmholtz Research Facilities Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT) and Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ) and combines a classical Fourier Transform Spectrometer with a 2D detector array. The capability to image the atmosphere and thereby take several thousand spectra simultaneously improves the spatial sampling of conventional limb sounders by an order of magnitude. Furthermore GLORIA is able to pan the horizontal viewing direction and therefore measure the same volume of air under different angles. Due to these properties tomographic methods can be used to derive 3D temperature and tracer fields with spatial resolutions of better than 30km x 30km x 300m from measurements taken during circular flight patterns.

Temperature distributions measured during GW-LCycle will be presented and analyzed for gravity waves. The full three dimensional wave vector and amplitude will be determined. This allows to calculate gravity wave momentum flux and its horizontal direction. Gravity wave events will be discussed in terms of sources and upward propagation into the middle stratosphere. We will search for the same events in observations from nadir sounders and other measurements taken during the campaign.

---

*email: i.krisch@fz-juelich.de
*Preference: Oral