A fast, parameterized model of upper atmospheric ionization rates, chemistry, and conductivity

Though many models of the upper atmosphere perform the necessary specification, none provide the flexibility of computational efficiency, high accuracy, and complete specification. We introduce a parameterized, updated, and extended version of the GLobal AirglOW (GLOW) model, called GLOWfast, that significantly reduces computation time and provides comparable accuracy in upper atmospheric ionization, densities, and conductivity.

We extend GLOW capabilities by (1) implementing the nitric oxide empirical model, (2) providing a new model component to calculate height-dependent conductivity profiles from first principles for the 80–200 km region, and (3) reducing computation time. The computational improvement is achieved by replacing the full, two-stream electron transport algorithm with two parameterizations: (1) photoionization (QRJ from Solomon and Qian (2005)) and (2) electron impact ionization (F0810 from Fang et al. (2008, 2010)).