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Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 12, 6485-6517, 2012
www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/12/6485/2012/ doi:10.5194/acpd-12-6485-2012 © Author(s) 2012. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. |
Implications of the O + OH reaction in hydroxyl nightglow modeling
1Departamento de Química, Universidade de Coimbra, 3004-535 Coimbra, Portugal
2permanent address: Universidad Camilo Cienfuegos, Matanzas, Cuba
Abstract. The hydroxyl nightglow has been examined anew using more realistic estimates of the rate constants for the key reactive and inelastic OH(v') + O quenching processes, which have been obtained from quasiclassical trajectories run on the adiabatic ab initio-based realistic DMBE-IV potential energy surface for the ground state of the hydroperoxil radical. Significant differences in the vertical profiles of vibrationally excited hydroxyl radicals are obtained relative to the ones predicted by Adler-Golden (1997) when employing an OH(v') + O effective rate constant fixed at twice the experimental value for v' = 1. Other limiting cases reported in the literature are also discussed. Additionally, the validity of the steady-state hypothesis is analysed by comparing with the results obtained via numerical integration of the master equations.
Citation: Caridade, P. J. S. B., Horta, J.-Z. J., and Varandas, A. J. C.: Implications of the O + OH reaction in hydroxyl nightglow modeling, Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 12, 6485-6517, doi:10.5194/acpd-12-6485-2012, 2012.