Abstract
The heat production in the earth's upper atmosphere due to the collision between the air atoms and the solar corpuscular radiation is discussed. The fundamental processes are treated semi-classically to get approximate formulae for the quantitative discussion. The atmospheric model given by Miller is employed to get the numerical values of the atmospheric elements. The intensity and the energy spectra of solar corpuscular radiation at the top of the atmosphere are estimated from the recent rocket measurements. About sixty per cent of the total energy loss of primary radiation is transformed into thermal energy for the heating of the atmosphere. The vertical profile of the heating rate is sensitively affected by the energy spectra of the primary radiation.
