Non-LTE Diagnostics of the IR Observations of Planetary Atmospheres

Abstract:

The breakdown of the local thermodynamic equilibrium in the Earth's and planetary
middle and upper atmospheres significantly impacts the observed molecular ro-vibrational
band emissions of these atmospheric layers. We will discuss the current status of
the non-LTE 
models of IR and near-IR emissions of the middle and upper atmospheres of Earth, Mars,
Titan and Saturn as well as their applications
to the interpretation of space observations and to efficient estimating the
IR radiative
cooling/heating. Many scientific and methodological problems
toward reliable non-LTE diagnostics of observation and estimation of IR radiative
energy budget of these atmospheric layers were successfully solved in recent years.
In this presentation we will, however, focus on a number of an-resolved issues, which
still requires additional efforts,
among them the role of the atomic oxygen, dust, metal atoms and ions, nascent vibrational
excitation chemical reaction products,
the need of detailed ro-vibrational modeling.