Steady-State Distributions of O2 and OH in the High Atmosphere and Implications in the Ozone Chemistry

Although steady-state distributions are commonly accepted to be of the Boltzmann-type, such an assumption can be rather unrealistic when modeling the high atmosphere. Corroborating evidence is reported for the vibrational and rotational distributions of O 2 and OH from detailed trajectory calculations, which shows that the thermalization assumption is untenable at such environmental conditions. The implications in the O x and HO x catalytic cycles are also assessed.