In numerical weather prediction as well as climate simulations, a current tendency is to raise the upper model lid, acknowledging the possible influence of middle atmosphere dynamics on tropospheric weather and climate. As the momentum deposition of gravity waves (GWs) is responsible for key features of the large scale flow in the middle atmosphere, the upward model extension has put GWs in the focus of atmospheric research needs. The Max Planck Institute for Meteorology and the German Weather Service have been developing jointly the non-hydrostatic global model ICON which features a new dynamical core based on an icosahedral grid. The extension of ICON beyond the middle mesosphere, where most GWs deposit their momentum, requires e.g.: relaxing the shallow-atmosphere and traditional approximations, taking into account the vertically increasing demixing of air in the heterosphere, and the integration of a turbulent mixing scheme appropriate for the mesosphere. We would like to present aspects of the model development and show first results from a model with global horizontal and vertical grid resolution of order (~40km, ~1km), with a focus on the portion of the GW field and its life cycle that we are already able to simulate. This work is one step in the development of the MA-ICON model, and part of a new research unit: Multi-Scale Dynamics of Gravity Waves (MS-GWaves), funded by the German Research Foundation.

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*email: sebastian.borchert@dwd.de
*Preference: Oral