Articles | Volume 35, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-35-481-2017
https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-35-481-2017
Regular paper
 | 
24 Mar 2017
Regular paper |  | 24 Mar 2017

Effect of water vapour absorption on hydroxyl temperatures measured from Svalbard

Joshua M. Chadney, Daniel K. Whiter, and Betty S. Lanchester

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Neutral temperature and atmospheric water vapour retrieval from spectral fitting of auroral and airglow emissions
Joshua M. Chadney and Daniel K. Whiter
Geosci. Instrum. Method. Data Syst., 7, 317–329, https://doi.org/10.5194/gi-7-317-2018,https://doi.org/10.5194/gi-7-317-2018, 2018
Short summary
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Short summary
A layer of excited OH molecules in the upper atmosphere produces strong airglow emission from which it is possible to obtain the temperature of the layer. To obtain accurate temperatures values, one must take into account the absorption of OH emission by water vapour in the lower atmosphere before this emission is measured by instruments on the ground. This paper provides the amount of absorption suffered by each OH line due to water vapour and presents a method to estimate water concentrations.