The Investigation of Structures in the Meinel OH Bands and the Oxygen Infrared Atmospheric Bands Observed During the April 2002 Solar Storms Observed With the OSIRIS Imager on the Odin Satellite

The OSIRIS Imager made observations of the neutral atmosphere before, during and after the solar storms of April 2002. It is shown that the airglow structures in the oxygen infrared atmospheric bands are essentially the same during the entire period and there is no apparent response in the mesospheric neutral atmosphere chemistry to the solar flare. The tomographic analysis of the OH band emissions shows that extensive dynamic structures are the typical situation in the airglow and that the presence of any enhanced gravity wave effects is not easily identified. In this paper the dynamic structures observed in both the oxygen and OH airglows are described and it is suggested for the wavelength scales that can be observed with the imager that the mesosphere was essentially unperturbed by the solar flares.