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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2026-1866</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>A Fast Spectral Line-Ratio Algorithm for Mesospheric Airglow Rotational Temperature Retrieval and Validation</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Niu</surname>
<given-names>Shuqi</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Gu</surname>
<given-names>Shengyang</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Gao</surname>
<given-names>Haiyang</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9696-4327</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Gong</surname>
<given-names>Dini</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Wei</surname>
<given-names>Yafei</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Qin</surname>
<given-names>Yusong</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9627-2996</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>School of Earth and Space Science and Technology, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Wuhan Institute of Quantum Technology, Wuhan, 430072, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>State Key Laboratory of Environment Characteristics and Effects for Near-space, Nanjing University of Information Science  and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>13</day>
<month>07</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>32</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Shuqi Niu et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-1866/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-1866/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-1866/egusphere-2026-1866.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-1866/egusphere-2026-1866.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Airglow rotational temperatures are effective tracers of variability in the mesopause region. To enable efficient processing of long-duration, high-temporal-resolution observations from the Mesospheric Airglow Spectrum Photometer (MASP), a Fast Airglow Spectral Line-Ratio algorithm (FASLR) is developed for rotational temperature retrieval. FASLR uses forward-modeled synthetic spectra to establish ratio&amp;ndash;temperature relationships, derives independent temperature estimates from multiple line-intensity ratios, and combines them with weights based on the relative sensitivity of each ratio to instrumental perturbations. By avoiding computationally intensive multi-parameter iterative optimization, the algorithm substantially improves computational efficiency and remains robust to occasional anomalies in individual spectral lines. FASLR is validated using two nights of co-located MASP and sodium fluorescence Doppler lidar observations, showing good consistency with the corresponding lidar temperatures. The algorithm is then applied to six nights of dual-channel MASP observations of the O₂ (0&amp;ndash;1) and OH (6&amp;ndash;2) emissions and compared with independent temperatures from SABER, Aura/MLS, SD-WACCMX, and NRLMSIS 2.1. Overall, these comparisons indicate general consistency in the background temperature level, the relative offset between the O₂ and OH emission layers, and the range of nocturnal variability. Near representative emission-layer altitudes, the O₂ rotational temperatures reproduce the nocturnal background evolution reasonably well, whereas the OH temperatures show a more evident early-night high bias but better agreement during the latter half of the night. Case studies further demonstrate that the FASLR-derived temperatures are suitable for quantitative analyses of both longer-period nocturnal variability and shorter-period disturbances. On 2 February 2024, temperature and intensity perturbations in the O₂ and OH layers exhibit a common dominant period band and stable phase relationships. On 7 February 2024, both layers show concurrent power enhancements within a similar period band, and simultaneous observations from the Mesospheric Airglow Wide-angle Imager (MAWI) independently support the identified disturbance. Overall, FASLR provides an efficient and robust approach for dual-channel airglow temperature retrieval and supports investigations of multi-scale wave processes in the mesopause region.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="32"/></counts>
<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>National Natural Science Foundation of China</funding-source>
<award-id>No. 42374223</award-id>
</award-group>
<award-group id="gs2">
<funding-source>Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities</funding-source>
<award-id>242025kf0035</award-id>
<award-id>2042025gf0003</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
</front>
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