Neutral temperature and atmospheric water vapour retrieval from spectral fitting of auroral and airglow emissions
Neutral temperature and atmospheric water vapour retrieval from spectral fitting of auroral and airglow emissions
We have developed a spectral fitting method to retrieve upper atmospheric parameters at multiple altitudes simultaneously during times of aurora, allowing us to measure neutral temperatures and column densities of water vapour. We use the method to separate airglow OH emissions from auroral O+ and N2 in observations between 725 and 740 nm using the High Throughput Imaging Echelle Spectrograph (HiTIES) located on Svalbard. In this paper, we describe our new method and show the results of Monte Carlo simulations using synthetic spectra which demonstrate the validity of the spectral fitting method and provide an indication of uncertainties on the retrieval of each atmospheric parameter. We show that the method allows for the retrieval of OH temperatures with an uncertainty of 6 % when contamination by N2 emission is small. N2 temperatures can be retrieved with uncertainties down to 3 %–5 % when N2 emission intensity is high. We can determine the intensity ratio between the O+ doublets at 732 and 733 nm (which is a function of temperature) with an uncertainty of 5 %.
317-329
Chadney, Joshua
4209e45f-6092-4c9d-b46b-4b598269a0f3
Whiter, Daniel
9a30d7b6-ea41-44fb-bd52-3ff1964eca5c
30 November 2018
Chadney, Joshua
4209e45f-6092-4c9d-b46b-4b598269a0f3
Whiter, Daniel
9a30d7b6-ea41-44fb-bd52-3ff1964eca5c
Chadney, Joshua and Whiter, Daniel
(2018)
Neutral temperature and atmospheric water vapour retrieval from spectral fitting of auroral and airglow emissions.
Geoscientific Instrumentation, Methods and Data Systems, 7 (4), .
(doi:10.5194/gi-7-317-2018).
Abstract
We have developed a spectral fitting method to retrieve upper atmospheric parameters at multiple altitudes simultaneously during times of aurora, allowing us to measure neutral temperatures and column densities of water vapour. We use the method to separate airglow OH emissions from auroral O+ and N2 in observations between 725 and 740 nm using the High Throughput Imaging Echelle Spectrograph (HiTIES) located on Svalbard. In this paper, we describe our new method and show the results of Monte Carlo simulations using synthetic spectra which demonstrate the validity of the spectral fitting method and provide an indication of uncertainties on the retrieval of each atmospheric parameter. We show that the method allows for the retrieval of OH temperatures with an uncertainty of 6 % when contamination by N2 emission is small. N2 temperatures can be retrieved with uncertainties down to 3 %–5 % when N2 emission intensity is high. We can determine the intensity ratio between the O+ doublets at 732 and 733 nm (which is a function of temperature) with an uncertainty of 5 %.
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gi-7-317-2018
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Accepted/In Press date: 21 November 2018
e-pub ahead of print date: 30 November 2018
Published date: 30 November 2018
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 426691
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/426691
ISSN: 2193-0856
PURE UUID: 62c774b3-e852-4f70-b991-c85a421e4d6d
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Date deposited: 10 Dec 2018 17:31
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 03:58
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Author:
Joshua Chadney
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