Gobal and regional chemical influence of sprites: Reconciling modeling results and measurements

Abstract. Mesospheric electrical discharges, known as sprites, formed by fast-propagating streamers, have been shown to create localized enhancements of atmospheric constituents such as N, O, NO_x, N₂O, and HO_x, as indicated by both, modeling results and space-based measurements. In this study, we incorporate the occurrence rate of sprites into a chemistry-climate model using meteorological parameters as a proxy. Additionally, we introduce the injection of chemical species by sprites into the model, based on electrodynamical modeling of individual sprite streamers and observations from space.

Our modeling results show a good agreement between the simulated sprite distribution and observed data on a global scale. While the global influence of sprites on the atmospheric chemistry is found to be negligible, our findings reveal their measurable chemical influence at regional scale, particularly for the concentration of HNO₃ and HNO₄ within the mesosphere. The simulations also suggest that sprites could be responsible for the observed NO₂ anomalies at an altitude of 52 km above thunderstorms, as reported by MIPAS. Finally, a projected simulation reveals that the occurrence rate of sprites could increase at a rate of 14 % per 1 K rise in the global temperature.