Self-Acceleration and Instability of Gravity Wave Packets: 3. Three-Dimensional Packet Propagation, Secondary Gravity...

Dong et al. (2020, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JD030691) employed a new compressible model to examine gravity wave (GW) self-acceleration dynamics, instabilities, secondary gravity wave (SGW) generation, and mean forcing for GW packets localized in two dimensions (2D). This paper extends the exploration of self-acceleration dynamics to a GW packet localized in three dimensions (3D) propagating into tidal winds in the mesosphere and thermosphere. As in the 2D packet responses, 3D GW self-acceleration dynamics are found to be significant and include 3D GW phase distortions, stalled GW vertical propagation, local instabilities, and SGW and acoustic wave generation. Additional 3D responses described here include refraction by tidal winds, localized 3D instabilities, asymmetric SGW propagation, reduced SGW and acoustic wave responses at higher altitudes relative to 2D responses, and forcing of transient, large-scale, 3D mean responses that may have implications for chemical and microphysical processes operating on longer time scales.