The relationship between high-speed solar wind streams and ozone loss in the mesosphere

Abstract

The solar wind is a stream of plasma released from the upper atmosphere of the Sun. The high-speed solar wind streams are thought to originate from coronal holes, which are funnel-like regions of open field lines in the Sun's magnetic field. The physical characteristics of high-speed solar wind streams are closely related to variations in space environments including the Earth's magnetosphere and the upper and lower atmospheres (e.g., Lei et al., 2008; Lee et al., 2013). Although its effects are not as strong as solar energetic particle events caused by flare and CME, the high-speed solar wind stream more frequently occurs and may affect the atmospheric chemistry. In this study, we analyzed the atmospheric density data for HO₂ and O₃ obtained by MLS onboard the AURA satellite according to solar wind speed measured by ACE satellite from 2005 to 2011 in order to study on the atmospheric effects f the high-speed solar wind streams. We report a preliminary result of this analysis.