© Author(s) 2008. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics

• Main Authors: Mesospheric No, Mipas Envisat, B. Funke, G. P. Stiller, T. Von Clarmann, N. Glatthor
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2008
• Subjects: Correspondence to; B. Funke; Antarctic; Arctic; Antarc*
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.608.9820; http://www.atmos-chem-phys.org/8/5787/2008/acp-8-5787-2008.pdf

Abstract. N2O abundances ranging from 0.5 to 6 ppbv were observed in the polar upper stratosphere/lower mesosphere by the MIPAS instrument on the Envisat satellite during the Arctic and Antarctic winters in the period July 2002 to March 2004. A detailed study of the observed N2O-CH4 correlations shows that such enhancements cannot be ex-plained by dynamics without invoking an upper atmospheric chemical source of N2O. The N2O enhancements observed at 58 km occurred in the presence of NOx intrusions from the upper atmosphere which were related to energetic par-ticle precipitation. Further, the inter-annual variability of mesospheric N2O correlates well with observed precipitat-ing electron fluxes. The analysis of possible chemical pro-duction mechanisms shows that the major part of the ob-served N2O enhancements is most likely generated under