Comments on “Poststorm Thermospheric NO Overcooling?” by Mikhailov and Perrone (2020)

Recently Mikhailov and Perrone (2020, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019ja027122) proposed the mechanism of neutral atomic oxygen reduction, which is associated with the upper atmospheric circulation, to explain the reduction of total thermospheric mass density during the storm recovery phase. The authors further concluded arbitrarily that there is no need to introduce the storm-time overcooling concept. However, their methodology is fundamentally flawed and their results and conclusions are incorrect. Instead, the overcooling scenario remains a viable concept in understanding thermospheric variations in the storm recovery phase.