Traveling Ionosphere Disturbance Signatures on Ground‐Based Observations of the O(¹D) Nightglow Inferred From 1‐D Modeling

Abstract

This paper reports our simulations of the volume emission rate of the O(1D) redline nightglow perturbed by waves traveling across the thermosphere at around 250 km altitude. Waves perturb the electronic and neutral background densities and temperatures in the region and modify the O(1D) layer intensity as it is captured by ground‐based nightglow instruments. The changes in the integrated volume emission rate are calculated for various vertical wavelengths of the perturbations. We demonstrate that, as the solar activity intensifies, the vertical scales of most likely observable TID waves become larger. For high solar activity, we demonstrate that only waves presenting vertical wavelengths larger than 360 km are likely to be observed. The variation of the range of likely observable vertical wavelengths with the solar cycle offers a plausible explanation for the low occurrence rate of TID in measurements of the redline nightglow during high solar activity periods. We have compared our results with those of Negale et al. (2018; https://doi.org/10.1029/2017JA024876) and Paulino et al (2018; https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-36-265-2018) to verify that observed vertical wavelengths distribute around 140–210 km, in good correspondence with our predicted threshold wavelength λzt∼160 km for very low solar cycle period.

Mean Zonal Drift Velocities of Plasma Bubbles Estimated from Keograms of Nightglow All-Sky Images from the Brazilian Sector

“…Original data used in this work are images of the OI6300 airglow emission obtained with all-sky CCD imagers operating at the low latitude station named Cachoeira Paulista (22.7 • S, 45 • W) (hereafter CP), and at the equatorial station named Cariri (7.4 • S, 36.5 • W) (hereafter CA), both in the Brazilian territory. A full discussion of how the redline is generated in the nighttime thermosphere can be found in [20] and references therein. A detailed description of the instruments used during the observation periods is given by [21].…”

Geomagnetic and Solar Dependency of MSTIDs Occurrence Rate: A Climatology Based on Airglow Observations From the Arecibo Observatory ROF

“…Thus, the growth rate of the Perkins instability is inversely proportional to solar activity. Vargas (2019) used another approach to explain this anticorrelation. Using a simulation model, he showed that it is due to the O( 1 D) 630.0-nm airglow layer vertical structure, which benefits the observation of longer rather than shorter vertical wavelength MSTIDs during high solar activities.…”

Mesosphere and Lower Thermosphere Changes Associated With the 2 July 2019 Total Eclipse in South America Over the Andes Lidar Observatory, Cerro Pachon, Chile

“…The OH brightness is more responsive of wave perturbations compared to that in rotational temperature because the OH photochemistry depends on various perturbed mesospheric constituents such as the atomic oxygen, molecular oxygen, and molecular nitrogen as well as the perturbed temperature (Swenson & Gardner, 1998;Vargas et al, 2007). This brightness response is large for waves of long vertical wavelength (>25 km; Vargas, 2019), which is the case for the bow-shaped wave, as shown in the discussion.…”