Transport of resonant atomic hydrogen emissions in the thermosphere and geocorona: Model description and applications

A computer code for calculating global models of atomic hydrogen Lyman series volume excitation rates and line-of-sight radiances has been developed for upper atmospheric modeling and remote sensing data analyses. It is based on the Anderson-Hord algorithm for solving the integral form of the transport equation and rigorously accounts for nonisothermal and pure absorption effects within the complete frequency redistribution approximation. Preliminary variants of the code have been in use by several groups for several years, and a fully tested version is now available for distribution. In this paper, the method for solving the transport equation is briefly reviewed and the key parameters identified. Validation of the code is illustrated via comparisons with previously analyzed data sets: STP 78-1 EUV spectrometer limb profiles and geocoronal "images" obtained with the UV imaging photometer on DE-1. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.