Reply to comment by J.‐P. St.‐Maurice on “Nonlinear electron heating by resonant shear Alfvén waves in the ionosphere”

[1] St.-Maurice [2005] questions the validity of the resonant shear Alfven wave electron heating mechanism proposed by Lu et al. [2005]. In particular, the following arguments have been raised: (i) the electron cooling time given by Lu et al. [2005] is underestimated because inelastic electron collisions are neglected; (ii) the ionization rate is incorrect; (iii) the electron and ion conductivities are wrong; (iv) the position of the energy deposition layer is incorrect; (v) the energy of precipitating electrons is not well defined, and (vi) the mechanism is simply not applicable. We acknowledge that inelastic collisions with neutrals are important for the electron cooling and ionization processes discussed by Lu et al. [2005]. However, we reject all other allegations. We demonstrate that inelastic cooling leads only to a revision of the threshold current in the nonlinear regime of our theory. However, this does not undermine the overall idea proposed by Lu et al. [2005]. Our improved model makes our results even more consistent with observations. [2] To account for inelastic cooling processes, one has only to modify the electron energy balance equation [Lu et al., 2005, equation (1)]: