Yeah, one minute didn't seem right, but I couldn't easily refute it. I figured maybe the free nitrogen atoms recombined with other ones milliseconds later, but

Yeah, one minute didn't seem right, but I couldn't easily refute it. I figured maybe the free nitrogen atoms recombined with other ones milliseconds later, but as you point out the existence of Birkeland-Eyde process disproves that, a significant amount would react with the oxygen instead of each other. The ozone layer blocks around 99% of UV light [0], the earth about 50%. That's two orders of magnitude accounted for, but even a dissociation rate of every few hours seems too fast. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_layer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_layer