Abstract. Most of the extraterrestrial dust entering the Earth's atmosphere ablates to produce metal vapours, which have significant effects on the aeronomy of the upper mesosphere and lower thermosphere. A new Chemical Ablation Model (CAMOD) is described which treats the physics and chemistry of ablation, by including the following processes: sputtering by inelastic collisions with air molecules before the meteoroid melts; evaporation of atoms and oxides from the molten particle; diffusion-controlled migration of the volatile constituents (Na and K) through the molten particle; and impact ionization of the ablated fragments by hyperthermal collisions with air molecules. Evaporation is based on thermodynamic equilibrium in the molten meteoroid (treated as a melt of metal oxides), and between the particle and surrounding vapour phase. The loss rate of each element is then determined assuming Langmuir evaporation. CAMOD successfully predicts the meteor head echo appearance heights, observed from incoherent scatter radars, over a wide range of meteoroid velocities. The model also confirms that differential ablation explains common-volume lidar observations of K, Ca and Ca + in fresh meteor trails. CAMOD is then used to calculate the injection rates into the atmosphere of a variety of elements as a function of altitude, integrated over the meteoroid mass and velocity distributions. The most abundant elements (Fe, Mg and Si) have peak injection rates around 85 km, with Na and K about 8 km higher. The more refractory element Ca ablates around 82 km with a Na:Ca ratio of 4:1, which does therefore not explain the depletion of atomic Ca to Na, by more than 2 orders of magnitude, in the upper mesosphere. DiffusionCorrespondence to: J. M. C. Plane (j.m.c.plane@leeds.ac.uk) of the most volatile elements (Na and K) does not appear to be rate-limiting except in the fastest meteoroids. Nonthermal sputtering causes ∼35% mass loss from the fastest (∼60-70 km s −1 ) and smallest (10 −17 -10 −13 g) meteoroids, but makes a minor contribution to the overall ablation rate.

The solar system is dusty, and would become dustier over time as asteroids collide and comets disintegrate, except that small debris particles in interplanetary space do not last long. They can be ejected from the solar system by Jupiter, thermally destroyed near the Sun, or physically disrupted by collisions. Also, some are swept by the Earth (and other planets), producing meteors. Here we develop a dynamical model for the solar system meteoroids and use it to explain meteor radar observations. We find that the Jupiter Family Comets (JFCs) are the main source of the prominent concentrations of meteors arriving to the Earth from the helion and antihelion directions.

[1] The first global model of meteoric iron in the atmosphere (WACCM-Fe) has been developed by combining three components: the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM), a description of the neutral and ion-molecule chemistry of iron in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT), and a treatment of the injection of meteoric constituents into the atmosphere. The iron chemistry treats seven neutral and four ionized iron containing species with 30 neutral and ion-molecule reactions. The meteoric input function (MIF), which describes the injection of Fe as a function of height, latitude, and day, is precalculated from an astronomical model coupled to a chemical meteoric ablation model (CABMOD). This newly developed WACCM-Fe model has been evaluated against a number of available ground-based lidar observations and performs well in simulating the mesospheric atomic Fe layer. The model reproduces the strong positive correlation of temperature and Fe density around the Fe layer peak and the large anticorrelation around 100 km. The diurnal tide has a significant effect in the middle of the layer, and the model also captures well the observed seasonal variations. However, the model overestimates the peak Fe + concentration compared with the limited rocket-borne mass spectrometer data available, although good agreement on the ion layer underside can be obtained by adjusting the rate coefficients for dissociative recombination of Fe-molecular ions with electrons. Sensitivity experiments with the same chemistry in a 1-D model are used to highlight significant remaining uncertainties in reaction rate coefficients, and to explore the dependence of the total Fe abundance on the MIF and rate of vertical transport.

There are four known sources of dust in the inner solar system: Jupiter Family comets, asteroids, Halley Type comets, and Oort Cloud comets. Here we combine the mass, velocity, and radiant distributions of these cosmic dust populations from an astronomical model with a chemical ablation model to estimate the injection rates of Na and Fe into the Earth's upper atmosphere, as well as the flux of cosmic spherules to the surface. Comparing these parameters to lidar observations of the vertical Na and Fe fluxes above 87.5 km, and the measured cosmic spherule accretion rate at South Pole, shows that Jupiter Family Comets contribute (80 ± 17)% of the total input mass (43 ± 14 t d −1 ), in good accord with Cosmic Background Explorer and Planck observations of the zodiacal cloud.

[1] A global model of sodium in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere has been developed within the framework of the National Center for Atmospheric Research's Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM). The standard fully interactive WACCM chemistry module has been augmented with a chemistry scheme that includes nine neutral and ionized sodium species. Meteoric ablation provides the source of sodium in the model and is represented as a combination of a meteoroid input function (MIF) and a parameterized ablation model. The MIF provides the seasonally and latitudinally varying meteoric flux which is modeled taking into consideration the astronomical origins of sporadic meteors and considers variations in particle entry angle, velocity, mass, and the differential ablation of the chemical constituents. WACCM simulations show large variations in the sodium constituents over time scales from days to months. Seasonality of sodium constituents is strongly affected by variations in the MIF and transport via the mean meridional wind. In particular, the summer to winter hemisphere flow leads to the highest sodium species concentrations and loss rates occurring over the winter pole. In the Northern Hemisphere, this winter maximum can be dramatically affected by stratospheric sudden warmings. Simulations of the January 2009 major warming event show that it caused a short-term decrease in the sodium column over the polar cap that was followed by a factor of 3 increase in the following weeks. Overall, the modeled distribution of atomic sodium in WACCM agrees well with both ground-based and satellite observations. Given the strong sensitivity of the sodium layer to dynamical motions, reproducing its variability provides a stringent test of global models and should help to constrain key atmospheric variables in this poorly sampled region of the atmosphere.