Effects of the inclusion of bending-to-stretching transitions in the non-LTE modeling of ozone vibrational temperatures

A description of the non-LTE intramolecular ozone relaxation cascade considering the relative importance of different transitions on the O3(v1v2v3) vibrational levels has been studied by quantifying the kinetic law of every process and transition that affect each level population. The analysis considers the inclusion for the first-time of bending-to-stretching (k2D) transitions in the energy relaxation cascade of ozone after it is formed by three-body recombination. In this way, the vibrational temperatures and the relative contribution of every transition are presented as a function of altitude. The results show that the inclusion of the bending-to-stretching transitions in the O3 non-LTE relaxation scheme decreases the ν2-mode overpopulation and therefore the stretching levels' population increases, as required for a correct radiance simulation of the 4.8 μm ozone emission in the upper atmosphere.