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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics
A Chemical-Dynamical Model Of Wave-Driven Sodium Fluctuations, Michael P. Hickey Ph.D., John M.C. Plane
A Chemical-Dynamical Model Of Wave-Driven Sodium Fluctuations, Michael P. Hickey Ph.D., John M.C. Plane
Publications
A comprehensive chemical-dynamical model is used to investigate the interaction of gravity waves with twenty minor species involved in the atomic sodium chemistry in the mesopause region. We find that chemistry becomes important on the underside of the sodium layer, primarily below 85 km altitude, where the relative importance of chemistry in wave-driven sodium fluctuations increases with increasing wave period and increasing horizontal wavelength. We also find that for altitudes below 80 km an adequate determination of the effects of chemistry in these fluctuations requires the inclusion of several reactions related to ozone chemistry. However, the atomic Na density is …
New Sources For The Hot Oxygen Geocorona: Solar Cycle, Seasonal, Latitudinal, And Diurnal Variations, Michael P. Hickey Ph.D., P. G. Richards, D. G. Torr
New Sources For The Hot Oxygen Geocorona: Solar Cycle, Seasonal, Latitudinal, And Diurnal Variations, Michael P. Hickey Ph.D., P. G. Richards, D. G. Torr
Publications
This paper demonstrates the variability of thermospheric sources of hot oxygen atoms. Numerical calculations were performed for day and night, high and low solar activity, summer and winter, and low- and middle-latitude conditions. Under most conditions, reactions involving metastable species are more important hot O sources than previously considered dissociative recombination of O2+ and NO+. All the hot O sources are an order of magnitude lower at midnight than at noon. At night, dissociative recombination of O2+and NO+ are the most important sources. Quenching of vibrationally excited N2 (N2*) by O is the most important metastable source at night. Above …