Seasonal variation of the Hough modes of the diurnal component of ozone heating evaluated from Aura Microwave Limb Sounder observations

Comparison with a photochemical model shows that the Strobel/Zhu parameterized model of the solar heating rate gives an accurate diurnal cycle of the heating in the 10–70 km altitude range. The heating calculated using the Strobel/Zhu model is decomposed into Hough modes and the annual (AO), semiannual (SAO), and quasi-biennial (QBO) periodicities of each Hough mode are presented.

The results show that the majority of the O3 heating goes into the symmetric (1,−2), (1,1), and (1,−4) modes. The largest propagating mode (1,1) and the largest trapped mode (1,−2) have obvious SAO signatures near 47 km, where the heating magnitude is largest. The forcing of the propagating (1,1) mode by ozone heating is larger during solstices than during equinoxes.