2011) Model of electronic-vibrational kinetics of the O 3 and O 2 photolysis products in the middle atmosphere: applications to water vapour retrievals from SABER/TIMED 6.3 µm radiance measurementsIn this work, we present a methodology of simple yet accurate calculations of H 2 O(v 2 ) vibrational levels pumping from the collisions with vibrationally excited O 2 (X 3 − g , v = 1) molecules, which is required for correct retrievals of H 2 O volume mixing ratios from the 6.3 µm band radiance. The electronic-vibrational kinetics model of O 2 and O 3 photolysis products used in this study includes 44 electronic-vibrational states of the O 2 molecule (three states of O 2 (b 1 + g , v), six states of O 2 (a 1 g , v) and 35 states of O 2 (X 3 − g , v)) as well as the first excited state of atomic oxygen, O( 1 D) and considers more than 100 photochemical reactions linking these states. We introduce the Resulting Quantum Output (RQO) approach that describes the O 2 (X 3 − g , v = 1) production quantum yield per one act of O 3 photolysis in the Hartley, Huggins, Chappuis and Wulf bands (200-900 nm). We demonstrate that the RQO weakly depends on latitude and season, and suggest a parameterization formula for the altitude dependence of this parameter. We show the application of RQO to H 2 O retrievals from the 6.3 m broadband radiance measured by the Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry (SABER)/Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) instrument that has been performing remote sensing of the Earth's atmosphere in the 13-110 km altitude range from 2002 onwards.

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