Strong longitudinal variations in the OH nightglow

Airglow from the hydroxyl Meinel bands, originating from about 87 km, gives a signature of the atmosphere that can be observed remotely. Analysis of long term global observations of the 2.0 mu m OH Meinel brightness observed by the TIMED/SABER satellite instrument presents some striking patterns that appear in the Meinel airglow. The analysis shows that migrating and nonmigrating tides have large effects on the nighttime OH airglow emission in the upper mesosphere. The OH airglow emission rate is positively correlated with temperature below 94 km and negatively correlated above. Variations with longitudinal wavenumbers 1 and 4 are shown to result from the impacts of the stationary (D0), westward wavenumber 2 (DW2), and eastward wavenumber 3 (DE3) nonmigrating diurnal tides. Citation: Xu, J., A. K. Smith, G. Jiang, H. Gao, Y. Wei, M. G. Mlynczak, and J. M. Russell III (2010), Strong longitudinal variations in the OH nightglow, Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L21801, doi:10.1029/2010GL043972.