Retrievals of Sulfur-Bearing Gas Abundances from Microwave Emission Maps of Venus Obtained at the VLA

Details Retrievals of Sulfur-Bearing Gas Abundances from Microwave Emission Maps of Venus Obtained at the VLA Retrievals of Sulfur-Bearing Gas Abundances from Microwave Emission Maps of Venus Obtained at the VLA

Dec 1998

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1998dps....30.5502j&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #30, #55.P02; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 30, p.1447

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

We present retrievals of abundances of sulfur dioxide and gaseous sulfuric acid vapor from microwave emission maps of Venus obtained at the VLA in April, 1996 at 15 GHz and 22.5 GHz. Temperature/pressure profiles obtained with the Magellan spacecraft are imported into the radiative transfer model, where it is assumed that the thermal structure of the Venus atmosphere does not vary significantly with longitude. The abundance of sulfur dioxide is constrained to be constant below 48 km, above which it decays exponentially. Sulfuric acid vapor is assumed to follow saturation until it reaches the specified peak abundance, below which it remains constant down to a specified altitude, below which it decays exponentially. For each region of interest, the algorithm solves for the abundances of the sulfur compounds and the thickness of the sulfuric acid vapor layer that minimize a least square error criterion. The results are qualitatively consistent with previous Magellan and Mariner 10 radio occultations, which revealed a narrow layer of sulfuric acid in the equatorial region, and a smaller, but more broadly distributed abundance of sulfuric acid at higher latitudes. Uncertainties in the retrieved parameters are estimated by conducting Monte Carlo simulations. We discuss the limitations in the current algorithm and the prospects for future improvements. This work was supported under a NASA Planetary Atmospheres Program grant.

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