Effects of the inclusion of bending-to-stretching transitions in the non-LTE modeling of ozone vibrational temperatures

Abstract

A description of the non-LTE intramolecular ozone relaxation cascade considering the relative importance of different transitions on the O 3( v 1 v 2 v 3) vibrational levels has been studied by quantifying the kinetic law of every process and transition that affect each level population. The analysis considers the inclusion for the first-time of bending-to-stretching ( k 2 D ) transitions in the energy relaxation cascade of ozone after it is formed by three-body recombination. In this way, the vibrational temperatures and the relative contribution of every transition are presented as a function of altitude. The results show that the inclusion of the bending-to-stretching transitions in the O 3 non-LTE relaxation scheme decreases the ν 2-mode overpopulation and therefore the stretching levels’ population increases, as required for a correct radiance simulation of the 4.8 μm ozone emission in the upper atmosphere.