Ableitung von atomarem Sauerstoff und Wasserstoff aus Satellitendaten und deren Abhängigkeit vom solaren Zyklus

Man-made climate change causes the global mean surface temperature to rise. However, climate change also effects the upper altitudes of the Earth’s atmosphere. Due to the low air density and due to the efficient infrared radiation cooling to space, temperature trends and other signals of climate change are much more pronounced in the mesosphere than at the ground. This work deals with the analysis and interpretation of the emissions of excited hydroxyl radicals (OH$^{∗}$), measured by SCIAMACHY (Scanning Imaging Absorption Spectrometer for Atmospheric CHartographY). SCIAMACHY is one of the ten instruments aboard ESA’s Envisat Environmental Satellite) launched in March 2002. In the upper mesosphere/ lower thermosphere excited OH∗ is produced by oxygen-hydrogen-reactions. Between 83 and 95 km altitude the reaction of ozone and atomic hydrogen, which produces OH$^[∗]$, is the most important heat source. The heating efficiency of the atmosphere in this region is directly proportional to the measured emission by OH$^{∗}$. In this work chemical heating rate, as well as concentrations of atomic hydrogen and atomic oxygen are derived from the measurements. The determination of atomic hydrogen requires ozone measurements. These are provided by GOMOS (Global Ozone Monitoring by Occultation of Stars), which is another experiment aboard Envisat. The analysis required the development of a complex non-LTE model, which takes into account all production and loss mechanism of the various vibrational states [...