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Thermospheric airglow emissions: A comparison of measurements from ATLAS‐1 and theory
Author(s) -
Torr Douglas G.,
Torr Marsha R.,
Richards P. G.
Publication year - 1993
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 - 10.1029/93gl00614
Subject(s) - airglow , thermosphere , environmental science , longitude , observatory , atmospheric sciences , altitude (triangle) , physics , remote sensing , atmosphere (unit) , mesopause , latitude , meteorology , mesosphere , astronomy , ionosphere , geology , stratosphere , geometry , mathematics
The Imaging Spectrometric Observatory flown on the ATLAS‐1 shuttle mission was designed to measure the dayglow and nightglow emissions of the thermosphere and mesosphere. During this mission the ISO obtained the first detailed spectral atlas of the dayglow over a broad wavelength range (600 Å to 8400 Å). Spectral emissions over this wavelength range were obtained as a function of altitude, allowing comparisons to be made with current thermospheric photochemistry models. Much of the present understanding of thermospheric photochemistry is based on the work done using the multi‐instrument complement onboard the Atmosphere Explorer satellites flown in the 1970's. It is therefore of considerable interest to answer the question of how well that basic photochemistry predicts a large number of different airglow emissions measured almost 20 years later. In this paper we run our comprehensive thermospheric model for conditions appropriate to the time of the ATLAS‐1 mission and compare the slant path intensities thus computed (as a function of altitude, latitude, longitude, and local time) with a dozen major emissions measured in the course of a particular observing sequence. Bearing in mind that the model has been run in a predictive mode, and that no attempt has yet been made to iterate the fit to the data, it is found that the agreement is reasonably good, indicating that the major processes controlling the thermospheric airglow are relatively well understood.