Vertical transport of anthropogenic soot aerosol into the middle atmosphere

Abstract

Gravito-photophoresis, a sunlight-induced force acting on particles which are geometrically asymmetric and which have uneven surface distribution of thermal accommodation coefficients, explains vertical transport of fractal soot aerosol emitted by aircraft in conventional flight corridors (10-12 km altitude) into the mesosphere (>80 km altitude). While direct optical effects of this aerosol appear nonsignificant, it is conceivable that they play a role in mesospheric physics by providing nuclei for polar mesospheric cloud formation and by affecting the ionization of the mesosphere to contribute to polar mesospheric summer echoes. Copyright 2000 by the American Geophysical Union.