HR: 1330h
AN: SA43A-06    [Abstracts]
TI: Simulations of OH Nightglow at Sprite Temperature in the MLT Region
AU: * Huang, T
EM: tuh4@psu.edu
AF: Penn State Berks and Lehigh Valley College, 148 Academic Building 8380 Mohr Lane, Fogelsville, PA 18051-9999 United States
AB: Recent observations reveal that temperature in the intense lightning discharge channels during sprite events in the mesosphere could be as high as 20,000 K. As is well known, most of chemical reaction rates are highly dependent on temperature. High temperature may enhance some chemical reactions while at the same time suppress other reactions. This work is aimed to investigate how sensitive are the OH chemical reactions to a temperature as high as the sprite temperature at 20,000 K. Preliminary results, ignoring dynamical effects, seem to indicate that number density of atomic O near 70km is reduced by 13 percents and that of O3 is reduced by 15 percents while the production of OH is greatly enhanced. Further work is underway to refine the model to better match the sprite condition.
DE: 0300 ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE
DE: 0310 Airglow and aurora
DE: 0317 Chemical kinetic and photochemical properties
SC: SPA-Aeronomy [SA]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly