Relative Importance of Nitric Oxide Physical Drivers in the Lower Thermosphere

Nitric oxide (NO) observations from the Solar Occultation for Ice Experiment and Student Nitric Oxide Explorer satellite instruments are investigated to determine the relative importance of drivers of short‐term NO variability. We study the variations of deseasonalized NO anomalies by removing a climatology, which explains between approximately 70% and 90% of the total NO budget, and relate them to variability in geomagnetic activity and solar radiation. Throughout the lower thermosphere geomagnetic activity is the dominant process at high latitudes, while in the equatorial region solar radiation is the primary source of short‐term NO changes. Consistent results are obtained on estimated geomagnetic and radiation contributions of NO variations in the two data sets, which are nearly a decade apart in time. The analysis presented here can be applied to model simulations of NO to investigate the accuracy of the parametrized physical drivers.