Atmospheric Tidal Oscillations: An Analysis of the Mechanics

An approximate formula for the equivalent depth of a compressible atmosphere is developed and shows that Coriolis forces dominate the diurnal tide causing it to have a small scale depth. It follows that either the diurnal motion field is confined to the vicinity of the heating and is rather feeble, or else that the diurnal fluctuations of wind up to 100 km are generated by tropospheric heating. In contrast, the semidiurnal tide has a large scale depth which implies that the semidiurnal fluctuations of wind up to 100 km are associated with ozone heating. Areas of agreement and conflict with observation are mentioned, and several problems concerning data analysis and further theoretical work are outlined.