An empirical model for the altitude of the OH nightglow emission

Using a multiple linear regression analysis of nearly six years of WINDII records, an empirical formula is determined to predict the altitude of the peak of the OH nightglow emission. More than 50,000 altitude profiles of volume emission rate collected by WINDII for the OH (8‐3) band P 1 (3) line emission during November 1991 to August 1997 over latitudes 40°S–40°N are used. The peak altitudes of these profiles increase with decreasing integrated emission rates and are almost completely described by the integrated emission rates. However the fitting is improved when a solar cycle dependence is considered. A slight further improvement results from incorporating a sinusoidal annual/semi‐annual component for data from the mid‐latitude region. With this formula, more than 87% of the calculated peak altitudes lie within a 1 km difference of the measured values for the mid‐latitude region.