Research Article

Comparisons of spectrally resolved nightglow emission locally simulated with space and ground level observations

¹ DOTA, ONERA, 91761 Palaiseau, France
² School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh, Crew Building, The King’s Buildings, EH9 3FF Edinburgh, UK
³ LATMOS-IPSL, CNRS/INSU, UMR 8190, Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, 78280 Guyancourt, France

^* Corresponding author: pierre.simoneau@onera.fr

Received: 19 December 2018
Accepted: 16 March 2020

Abstract

A mesospheric model of the airglow emission is developed to recover the night variations observed at ground level. The model is based on a 1D vertical photochemical model, including the photodissociation and heating processes. The spectral radiation is calculated at high altitude and propagated through the atmosphere to the ground. We also include short scale vertical dynamic such as turbulences and the molecular diffusion. Simulations reveal realistic emissions when compared with space observations. In addition, we estimate the impact of changes associated with parameterized atmospheric tides. The comparison with observations is performed over high altitude and ground level. We confront the model outputs at high altitude with satellite observations (SABER and GOMOS) and the simulations propagated at ground level are compared to local measurements campaigns performed in France and India. Biases between observed and simulated radiances and volume emission rates are suspected to be due to the impact of gravity waves or the large scale dynamic.