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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 April 2016
In the outer atmospheres of cool giants and supergiants there is a competition between heating by shock waves which develop from noise lower down in the convection zone and radiative cooling. The post-shock cooling is most effective in keeping temperatures low and in damping shocks if molecules (especially CO) form. CO is important both because of its high dissociation energy (11 eV) and its large IR opacity.