Measured profiles of the vertical distributions of the volume emission rates of the OH infrared airglow are presented. These measurements by various investigators constitute a total of 34 rocket flights and were obtained at both mid and high latitudes, at various solar depression angles, and at various times of the year using rockets which flew into the middle atmosphere. Some 55 profiles are summarized. Quantitative altitude comparisons are made at various locations. Included in the comparisons are volume emission rate profiles at IR as well as at visible wavelengths. From all of the profiles reported, the value of the mean altitude of the peak OH volume emission rate is 87.4 km, and the mean half-power thickness is 12.4 km. However, we recommend as working numbers to be used: 86.8 ? 2.6 km for the altitude of the peak and 8.6 ? 3.1 for the thickness of the OH emission layer [taken from the selected profiles of Table III].

http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0031-8949/37/4/021/pdf

Rocket measurements of the altitude distributions of the hydroxyl airglow

A tomographic inversion is used to analyze measurements of the auroral atomic oxygen emission line at 6300 A made by the atmosphere explorer visible airglow experiment. A comparison is made between emission altitude profiles and the results from an electron transport and chemical reaction model. Measurements of the energetic electron flux, neutral composition, ion composition, and electron density are incorporated in the model.

The auroral 6300 Å emission: Observations and modeling

The coupled effects of kinetics, solar cycle flux variations and vertical transport on the distribution of long-lived hydrogen-carbon-oxygen compounds in the terrestrial mesosphere and lower thermosphere are studied using a one-dimensional aeronomy model. The calculations account for the important chemical reactions and use rocket measurements of the solar flux at solar minimum and maximum. Photodissociation rates appropriate for the mesosphere are determined with a spherical shell atmosphere formalism; detailed corrections for the O_2 Schumann-Runge bands and the temperature dependence of the CO_2 cross sections are used. Then an eddy diffusion profile is derived which gives agreement with the Aladdin 74 mass spectral measurements of atomic O, O_2, CO_2, and Ar in the lower thermosphere and observations of the O_3 minimum at ∼80 km. The 115 GHz CO radio emission line computed for the CO mixing ratio profile predicted with the new eddy diffusion profile compares well with recent observations of W. J. Wilson. Differences between the calculated CO mixing ratio profile and previous theoretical and observational determinations are discussed. Our derived eddy diffusion profile has a sudden decrease at 92 km which is necessary to produce the atomic O peak at 98 km that appears in the Aladdin 74 measurements. This stagnant region apparently is a recurrent or persistent feature of the upper atmosphere since an atomic O peak around 98 km has been seen by different techniques in different seasons over several years. Slow eddy diffusion in the lower thermosphere through the homopause was also the conclusion of earlier Ar/N_2 rocket measurements studies. The analytic approach of this paper could be used in the future to monitor variations in middle atmosphere dynamics, if regularly conducted simultaneous observations of various groups of species were available.

/pdf/vertical-transport-and-photochemistry-in-the-terrestrial-5eonhegzl7.pdf

Vertical transport and photochemistry in the terrestrial mesosphere and lower thermosphere (50–120 km)

The role of airglow losses in reducing the efficiency of solar heating in the Hartley, Huggins, and Chappuis bands of ozone in the Herzberg, Ly alpha, Schumann-Runge continuum, and in Schumann-Runge bands of molecular oxygen is investigated together with the role of heating due to seven chemical reactions in the middle atmosphere. The results of calculations of bulk efficiencies demonstrate that airglow and chemiluminescent emission significantly reduce the amount of energy available for heat throughout the mesosphere and lower thermosphere.

A detailed evaluation of the heating efficiency in the middle atmosphere

/pdf/energetic-oxygen-in-the-upper-atmosphere-and-the-laboratory-5evi3ku7f6.pdf

B.H. Solheim

Papers

A measurement of the O2(b1Σg+−X3Σg−) atmospheric band and the OI(1S) green line in the nightglow

The quenching of OH∗ in the atmosphere

The excitation of O2(b1Σg+) in the nightglow

The excitation of the infrared atmospheric oxygen bands in the nightglow

An indirect mechanism for the production of O(1S) in the aurora