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The Contribution of Sprite Streamers to the Chemical Composition of the Mesosphere‐Lower Thermosphere
Author(s) -
PérezInvernón F. J.,
MalagónRomero A.,
GordilloVázquez F. J.,
Luque A.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2020gl088578
Subject(s) - sprite (computer graphics) , thermosphere , mesosphere , millisecond , photometer , airglow , ionosphere , atmospheric sciences , physics , incoherent scatter , light emission , environmental science , computational physics , geophysics , optics , astronomy , stratosphere , computer science , computer vision
Sprites are mesospheric filamentary discharges that liberate and accelerate large quantities of electrons. They produce local enhancements of some chemical species and fast (millisecond) optical emissions. In this work, we couple a self‐consistent 2‐D model of sprites with an extensive chemical scheme to calculate the injection of chemical species by one sprite streamer in the mesosphere 0.85 ms after its onset. The N, NO, and N 2 O injections per streamer are about 10 21 atoms, 6 × 10 19 molecules, and 10 18 molecules, respectively. According to our results, longer simulations are necessary to determine the role of sprites in the concentration of N 2 O in the mesosphere. We also calculate the contribution of sprite glows to space‐based photometers of the Atmosphere‐Space Interactions Monitor and the Tool for the Analysis of RAdiations from lightNIngs and Sprites.