Ozone depletion in the middle atmosphere during solar proton events in October 2003

A one-dimensional time-dependent model has been used to calculate the production and loss of minor components of the middle atmosphere during solar proton precipitations in October 2003. We used the solar proton fluxes measured on the GOES-11 spacecraft to estimate the rates of ion–electron pair, odd-nitrogen and odd-hydrogen production. Our calculations show that the production of odd-hydrogen causes the ozone depletion by the factor 2 and more at the altitudes higher than 55 km. This depletion is in an agreement with measurements of O3 altitude profiles made on POAM-3 satellite.