  We explore the temporal evolution of the energy radiated by CO2 and NO from
the Earth's thermosphere on a global scale. This investigation is based on both
observational and empirically derived data. Firstly, we analyze the daily power
observations of CO2 and NO obtained by the Sounding of the Atmosphere using
Broadband Emission Radiometry (SABER) instrument on the NASA
Thermosphere-Ionosphere-Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) satellite
throughout the period 2002 - 2016. Secondly, we perform the same analysis to
the empirical daily power emitted by CO2 and NO that were derived recently from
the infrared energy budget of the thermosphere during 1947-2016. The tool
employed for the analysis of the observational and the empirical datasets is
the detrended fluctuation analysis, in order to investigate whether the power
emitted by CO2 and by NO in the thermosphere exhibits power-law behaviour. The
results obtained from both the observational and empirical data do not support
the establishment of the power-law behaviour. This result indicates that the
empirically derived data exhibit the same intrinsic properties with the
observational ones, thus enhancing their reliability.
