The Contribution of Sprite Streamers to the Chemical Composition of the Mesosphere-Lower Thermosphere

Abstract

Sprites are mesospheric filamentary discharges that liberate and accelerate large quantities of electrons. They produce local enhancements of some chemical species and fast (millisecond) optical emissions. In this work, we couple a self-consistent 2-D model of sprites with an extensive chemical scheme to calculate the injection of chemical species by one sprite streamer in the mesosphere 0.85 ms after its onset. The N, NO, and N2O injections per streamer are about 1021 atoms, 6 × 1019 molecules, and 1018 molecules, respectively. According to our results, longer simulations are necessary to determine the role of sprites in the concentration of N2O in the mesosphere. We also calculate the contribution of sprite glows to space-based photometers of the Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor and the Tool for the Analysis of RAdiations from lightNIngs and Sprites.