Submitting Campus
Daytona Beach
Department
Physical Sciences
Document Type
Article
Publication/Presentation Date
11-1-1994
Abstract/Description
We employ a model of wave-driven OH nightglow fluctuations to calculate the effects of gravity waves on the chemical exothermic heating due to reactions involving odd hydrogen and odd oxygen species in the mesopause region. Using a model based on time means and deviations from those means, it is demonstrated that gravity waves contribute to the time-average exothermic heating. The effect can be significant because the fractional fluctuations in minor species density can be substantially greater than the fractional fluctuation of the major gas density. Our calculations reveal that the waves mitigate the exothermic heating, demonstrating their potential importance in the heat budget of the mesopause region.
Publication Title
Geophysical Research Letters
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1029/94GL02504
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
Scholarly Commons Citation
Hickey, M. P. and Walterscheid, R. L. (1994), Wave-modified mean exothermic heating in the mesopause region. Geophys. Res. Lett., 21: 2413–2416. doi: https://doi.org/10.1029/94GL02504.
