Abstract
Procedures for inferring the upper mesospheric oxygen atom densities from observations of v′ = 7, v′ = 8 and v′ = 9 OH Meinel band volume emission rates in the nightglow are described. A variety of recently developed Meinel band excitation models, and associated parameters, are employed and it is demonstrated that although serious inadequacies exist in our understanding of the Meinel band excitation mechanism, these uncertainties have only a minor impact on the oxygen atom densities inferred between 80 and 95 km. The proposed technique for inferring oxygen atom densities is applied to the limited number of high v′ OH band emission profiles which exist in the literature and the results are compared with the oxygen atom densities given by the standard atmospheric models. For one of the analyzed profiles an independent measurement of the oxygen atom densities was available and the densities inferred from the OH profile are in excellent agreement with those measured.
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