Non-thermal hydrogen atoms in the terrestrial upper thermosphere

Jianqi Qin () and Lara Waldrop
Additional contact information
Jianqi Qin: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Lara Waldrop: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Nature Communications, 2016, vol. 7, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Model predictions of the distribution and dynamical transport of hydrogen atoms in the terrestrial atmosphere have long-standing discrepancies with ultraviolet remote sensing measurements, indicating likely deficiencies in conventional theories regarding this crucial atmospheric constituent. Here we report the existence of non-thermal hydrogen atoms that are much hotter than the ambient oxygen atoms in the upper thermosphere. Analysis of satellite measurements indicates that the upper thermospheric hydrogen temperature, more precisely the mean kinetic energy of the atomic hydrogen population, increases significantly with declining solar activity, contrary to contemporary understanding of thermospheric behaviour. The existence of hot hydrogen atoms in the upper thermosphere, which is the key to reconciling model predictions and observations, is likely a consequence of low atomic oxygen density leading to incomplete collisional thermalization of the hydrogen population following its kinetic energization through interactions with hot atomic or ionized constituents in the ionosphere, plasmasphere or magnetosphere.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13655 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:7:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms13655

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms13655

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().