Determination of atmospheric composition and temperature from the u.v. airglow |
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| Authors: | RR Meier DE Anderson |
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| Institution: | E.O. Hulburt Center for Space Research, Space Science Division, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C. 20375, U.S.A. |
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| Abstract: | Recent spectroscopic observations of atmospheric emissions in the u.v. region of the spectrum have been analyzed using laboratory-measured excitation cross-sections, models and observations of energetic electron fluxes and models of atmospheric composition. In both the airglow and the aurora, self-consistent pictures of the excitation processes and atmospheric composition have been obtained. These analyses have shown that photoelectron fluxes measured from the Atmospheric Explorer satellite are in good agreement with the photoelectron-excited dayglow and that a large number of recent laboratory-measured excitation processes are able to reproduce the u.v. spectra in both the dayglow and aurora. In this paper we show that accurate quantitative determinations of thermospheric parameters can now be made from u.v. spectral observations. In particular, we show that the composition and temperature can be obtained from altitude profiles of the emissions alone, without reliance on the absolute photoelectron flux. |
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