Abstract
Energetic particle precipitation induces ionization of the atmosphere which initiates a chain of reaction cycles affecting atmospheric composition and dynamics potentially down to surface weather systems. Ionization rates are retrieved based on yield functions or pre-calculated monoenergetic electron flux and energy spectra of precipitated energetic particles. Usually, information about energy spectra is obtained from satellites, balloons, and various ground-based observations. In all cases, some assumptions about spectral distribution for the entire energy range have to be made. As ionization rates are widely used in chemistry-climate models to estimate the atmospheric response to particle forcing, evaluation of the energy spectra is a key task in the solar-terrestrial studies. In this paper, it is shown that possible uncertainties of the ionization rates retrieval based on different spectral functions can lead to large disagreements in the ionization rates, with implications for the modelled response of atmospheric composition and dynamics to electron precipitation.
Highlights
IntroductionEnergetic electron and proton precipitation causes ionization of the Earth's atmosphere [1]
Energetic electron and proton precipitation causes ionization of the Earth's atmosphere [1]. This leads to a chain of very fast ion chemistry reactions leading to the formation of reactive nitrogen and hydrogen, strengthening catalytic ozone loss cycles leading to ozone depletion, followed by changes in the atmospheric temperature and dynamics
The calculation of the ionization rates induced by energetic electron precipitation is usually based on the use of pre-calculated look-up tables containing ion production rates for precipitating monoenergetic electrons [9,10,11]
Summary
Energetic electron and proton precipitation causes ionization of the Earth's atmosphere [1] This leads to a chain of very fast ion chemistry reactions leading to the formation of reactive nitrogen and hydrogen, strengthening catalytic ozone loss cycles leading to ozone depletion, followed by changes in the atmospheric temperature and dynamics. The exponential-law function is used for fitting energy of electron precipitation range covering by balloon-borne observations; Maxwellian spectral distribution describes well the auroral electrons and power-law spectral distribution is used for particles measured with the satellite instruments. The main goal of this paper is to demonstrate that the difference in the retrieval of ionization rates based on various fit functions covering the same energy range make a case of possible over- or under-estimation of ion productions which than can lead to disagreement between observation of chemical composition of the atmosphere and model results
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