Abstract
Thermal equilibrium and hydrostatic equilibrium are mutually exclusive for any particular quantum state of an atmospheric constituent in a non-isothermal atmosphere. As a result, there is a flux of rotationally, vibrationally, and electronically excited atoms and molecules down the temperature gradient, balanced by an up-gradient transport of ground-state atoms and molecules, resulting in a net transport of excitation energy, but with no net mass transport. The energy flux is first formulated as a molecular process and applied to vibrationally excited molecular nitrogen and rotationally excited atomic oxygen in the Earth's lower thermosphere, then reformulated as a bulk process and applied to the Venusian atmosphere, where it is shown that the CO 2 vibrational flux is a significant contribution to the total eddy energy flux in the 0–60 km region.
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