Two-dimensional Morlet wavelet transform and its application to wave recognition methodology of automatically extracting two-dimensional wave packets from lidar observations in Antarctica

Waves in the atmosphere and ocean are inherently intermittent, with amplitudes, frequencies, or wavelengths varying in time and space. Most waves exhibit wave packet-like properties, propagate at oblique angles, and are often observed in two-dimensional (2-D) datasets. These features make the wavelet transforms, especially the 2D wavelet approach, more appealing than the traditional windowed Fourier analysis, because the former allows adaptive time-frequency window width (i.e., automatically narrowing window size at high frequencies and widening at low frequencies), while the latter uses a fixed envelope function. This study establishes the mathematical formalism of modified 1-D and 2-D Morlet wavelet transforms, ensuring that the power of the wavelet transform in the frequency/wavenumber domain is equivalent to the mean power of its counterpart in the time/space domain. Consequently, the modified wavelet transforms eliminate the bias against highfrequency/small-scale waves in the conventional wavelet methods and many existing codes. Based on the modified 2-D Morlet wavelet transform, we put forward a wave recognition methodology that automatically identifies and extracts 2-D quasi-monochromatic wave packets and then derives their wave properties including wave periods, wavelengths, phase speeds, and time/space spans. A step-by-step demonstration of this methodology is given on analyzing the lidar data taken during 28-30 June 2014 at McMurdo, Antarctica. The newly developed wave recognition methodology is then applied to two more lidar observations in May and July 2014, to analyze the recently discovered persistent gravity waves in Antarctica. The decomposed inertia-gravity wave characteristics are consistent with the conclusion in Chen et al. (2016a) that the 3-10 h waves are persistent and dominant, and exhibit lifetimes of multiple days. They have vertical wavelengths of 20-30 km, vertical phase speeds of 0.5-2 m/s, and horizontal wavelengths up to several thousands kilometers in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT). The variations in the extracted wave properties from different months in winter indicate a month-to-month variability in the gravity wave activities in the Antarctic MLT region.