Production of nitrogen and carbon species by thunderstorms on Venus

The effects of the newly discovered thunderstorms on Venus upon the nitrogen and carbon species in its atmosphere were calculated. An Earth-like lightning frequency of 100 sec^?1 was used for Venus, in accord with recent optical measurements by Pioneer-Venus (W. J. Borucki, J. W. Dyer, G. Z. Thomas, J. C. Jordon, and D. A. Comstock, submitted for publication). The rate of NO production by thunder shock waves, 2.5 × 10¹¹ g year^?1, is about an order of magnitude smaller than on the Earth. But on Venus, in the absence of precipitation, which is the major removal mechanism of odd nitrogen from the Earth's atmosphere, the mixing ratios of odd nitrogen species might be considerably higher. The global CO production is governed by CO₂ photolysis rather than by CO₂ pyrolysis by lightning. However, thunderstorms produce about 2.5 × 10¹¹ g year^?1 of CO in the cloud layer, far from the high altitude CO₂ photolysis region.