Solar Flare Soft X-ray Irradiance and its Impact on the Earth's Upper Atmosphere

Details Solar Flare Soft X-ray Irradiance and its Impact on the Earth's Upper Atmosphere Solar Flare Soft X-ray Irradiance and its Impact on the Earth's Upper Atmosphere

May 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agusmsa23b..03r&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2007, abstract #SA23B-03

Physics

7519 Flares, 7538 Solar Irradiance, 0358 Thermosphere: Energy Deposition (3369)

Scientific paper

Solar flare soft X-ray irradiance provides a highly variable energy source to the lower thermosphere. Observations from three NASA satellite missions, the Thermosphere, Ionosphere, Mesosphere, Energetics and Dynamics - Solar Extreme Ultraviolet Experiment (TIMED-SEE), the Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) and the Student Nitric Oxide Explorer (SNOE) are analyzed to determine how solar soft X-ray irradiance varies during a solar flare and how this irradiance affects the Earth's lower thermosphere. Solar soft X-rays are one of the principal energy sources that lead to the production of thermospheric nitric oxide (NO) through the dissociation of odd-nitrogen. NO is an important source of radiative cooling in the thermosphere and therefore performs an important role in the energy balance. The XUV Photometer System (XPS) aboard TIMED-SEE and the XPS aboard SORCE both include a suite of photodiode detectors that measure the solar soft X-ray irradiance in broadband channels from 0.1 to 27 nm. The TIMED-SEE XPS observed 29 flares of various strengths over a six month period in 2002 and the SORCE XPS observed several large flares during the fall of 2003. An emission measure technique is used to interpret the broadband observations and determine a solar flare spectrum with a model that calculates theoretical spectra for input differential emission measures (DEM). The DEMs are iterated until the resulting spectrum reproduces the XPS observations. These solar flare spectra are used to determine the soft X-ray energy input to the Earth's lower thermosphere. Most of the solar flare soft X-ray irradiance comes from the 1 - 2 nm range and is deposited near 106 km. The abundance of NO peaks near 106 km and responds dramatically to energy deposited in the upper atmosphere. SNOE observed a significant increase in thermospheric NO following the X17 solar flare on 28 October 2003. Analysis of solar flare NO density enhancements and a comparison to results from a photochemical model will be presented along with a description of the solar flare spectral analysis.

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