Gravity waves (GWs) interact with the background winds and thus are an important driver of many circulation patterns in the middle atmosphere. In order to better understand these interactions it is necessary to infer the global distribution of GWs and their momentum flux. From pairs of temperature profiles measured by infrared limb sounders, global distributions of the absolute values of global momentum flux were deduced. Other parameters, such as the direction of the wave propagation remain missing, however. One approach to estimate such missing properties is to use a GW resolving model and to compare the model results to satellite data. If the comparison is favourable, trust is gained also in such parameters we cannot directly validate. We find that ECMWF generates realistic distributions of GWs in the winter mid stratosphere. Higher up these waves are artificially damped. Using the stratospheric wave parameters of individual GWs as launch values for a ray-tracer, however, also mesospheric effects such as the GW interaction during a stratospheric warming can be investigated. Such extrapolated data are used together with satellite data to discuss the momentum budget in the upper mesosphere, before and during a stratospheric warming as well as in the recovery phase.

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*email: p.preusse@fz-juelich.de
*Preference: Oral