Time and altitude variations of vibrationally excited states of atmospheric hydroxyl

A time dependent one-dimensional theoretical model has been used to deduce averaged properties of the hydroxyl molecule airglow. Vertical profiles and time variations of the total amount of excited states have been established. The results are in close agreement with experimentally observed properties. Calculations have been made to examine the relative importance of the deactivation processes and to give limiting values to the adjustable coefficients. During the day, both collisional quenching and chemical deactivations are important, and reduce the emission by approximately the same factor while during the night collisional quenching seems to be negligible.