Observations of the annual and semi-annual wave in the stratosphere using Nimbus 5 SCR data

Nimbus 5 SCR radiance data are used, together with 200 mb geopotential data published by the Free University of Berlin, for the two years 1973-1974 to investigate the annual and semi-annual oscillations which occur in the stratospheric zonal mean temperature and geostrophic wind fields. Oscillations in temperature are investigated in both hemispheres, but due to the lack of suitable data only northern hemisphere winds are examined. The results of the analyses are compared to those derived from other globally-less-well-represented sources of data, namely radio sonde and rocket observations. In general good agreement is obtained in the regions of overlap. © 1978.