Surface recombination of O and H2on meteoric dust as a source of mesospheric water vapor

摘要: One of the most provocative recent developments in mesospheric science is discovery a narrow layer water vapor located near 70 km altitude where H2O mixing ratio reaches highest values observed middle atmosphere [Summers et al., 1997a]. This can only be explained by local source H2O, which contrary to conventional gas phase chemistry that predicts net destruction part mesosphere. Although suggestions have been made this produced an influx small comets releasing upper atmosphere, we propose reaction O + H2 → on surface meteoric dust account for layer. Using chemical-transport model find inclusion with probability ∼0.01 yields characteristics. We suggest key understanding origin lies coincident observations and H2O.