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Abstract Terrestrial lightning frequently serves as a loss mechanism for energetic electrons in the Van Allen radiation belts, leading to lightning‐induced electron precipitation (LEP). Regardless of the specific causes, energetic electron precipitation from the radiation belts in general has a significant influence on the ozone concentration in the stratosphere and mesosphere. The atmospheric chemical effects induced by LEP have been previously investigated using subionospheric VLF measurements at Faraday station, Antarctica (65.25°S, 64.27°W,L= 2.45). However, there exist large variations in the precipitation flux, ionization production, and occurrence rate of LEP events depending on the peak current of the parent lightning discharge, as well as the season, location, and intensity of the thunderstorm activity. These uncertainties motivate us to revisit the calculation of atmospheric chemical changes produced by LEP. In this study, we combine a well‐validated LEP model and first‐principles atmospheric chemical simulation, and investigate three intense storms in the year of 2013, 2015, and 2017 at the magnetic latitude of 50., 32., and 35., respectively. Modeling results show that the LEP events in these storms can cumulatively drive significant changes in the,, andconcentration in the mesosphere. These changes are as high as,, andat 75–85 km altitude, respectively, and comparable to the effects typically induced by other types of radiation belt electron precipitation events. Considering the high occurrence rate of thunderstorms around the globe, the long‐term global chemical effects produced by LEP events need to be properly quantified. 

Abstract Accurate specification of ionization production by energetic electron precipitation is critical for atmospheric chemistry models to assess the resultant atmospheric effects. Recent model‐observation comparison studies have increasingly highlighted the importance of considering precipitation fluxes in the full range of electron energy and pitch angle. However, previous parameterization methods were mostly proposed for isotropically precipitation electrons with energies up to 1 MeV, and the pitch angle dependence has not yet been parameterized. In this paper, we first characterize and tabulate the atmospheric ionization response to monoenergetic electrons with different pitch angles and energies between∼3 keV and∼33 MeV. A generalized method that fully accounts for the dependence of ionization production on background atmospheric conditions, electron energy, and pitch angle has been developed based on the parameterization method of Fang et al. (2010,https://doi.org/10.1029/2010GL045406). Moreover, we validate this method using 100 random atmospheric profiles and precipitation fluxes with monoenergetic and exponential energy distributions, and isotropic and sine pitch angle distributions. In a suite of 6,100 validation tests, the error in peak ionization altitude is found to be within 1 km in 91% of all the tests with a mean error of 2.7% in peak ionization rate and 1.9% in total ionization. This method therefore provides a reliable means to convert space‐measured precipitation energy and pitch angle distributions into ionization inputs for atmospheric chemistry models. 

Abstract Determination of the fluxes and spectra of energetic particle precipitation into the Earth's atmosphere is of critical importance for radiation belt dynamics, magnetosphere‐ionosphere coupling, as well as atmospheric chemistry. To improve the assessments of precipitating electrons using X‐ray measurements requires deeper understanding of bremsstrahlung production, transport, and redistribution throughout the atmosphere. Here we use first‐principles Monte Carlo models to explore relativistic electron precipitation events from the perspective of bremsstrahlung X‐rays. The spatial distribution of X‐rays is quantified from the ground level up to satellite altitudes. We then simulate X‐ray images that would be captured using an ideal camera and calculate the energy spectra of X‐rays originating from monoenergetic beams of precipitating electrons. Moreover, we show how these impulse responses to monoenergetic beams can be used to reconstruct the precipitating source using an inversion technique. Modeling results show that space‐borne measurements of backscattered X‐rays provide a promising method to estimate precipitation spatial size, fluxes, and spectra.