The Composition, Vertical Structure and Global Variability of the Lower Cloud Deck on Venus as Determined by Radio Occultation Techniques.

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The opportunity to determine the planetwide temperature and cloud structure of Venus using radio occultation techniques arose with Pioneer Venus. Amplitude and Doppler data provided by the radio occultation experiment offered a unique and powerful means of examining the atmospheric properties in the lower cloud region. Absorption due to gaseous components of the atmosphere were subtrated from the measured adsorption coefficient profiles before they were used to compute cloud mass contents. This absorption was found to represent a small part of the total absorption, depending on the latitude. If a cloud particle model consisting of a solid non-absorbing dielectric sphere with a concentric liquid sulfuric acid coating is invoked, the absorptivity of the particles increases from that of a pure sulfuric acid liquid sphere, and the mass content derived from the absorption coefficient profiles decreases. As the ratio of the core radius to the total radius (q) increases, absorption increases to more than a factor of 10 for high values of q. The mass contents for all orbits in the equatorial region of Venus were calculated using values of q of from 0 to 1. The resulting profiles match the probe mass content profiles at similar locations when a q of 0.98 is chosen. The wavelength dependence of the absorption for the spherical shell model varies with q from 1/(lamda)('2) for pure liquid to (lamda)('0.2) for a large core. A q of from 0.97 to .99 results in a wavelength dependence of 1/(lamda)('1.0) to 1/(lamda)('1.4) which matches the radio occultation absorption wavelength dependence and the microwave opacity wavelength dependence. Mass content profiles using a q of 0.98 were determined for occultations in the polar, collar, midlatitudinal and equatorial regions assuming q remains constant over the planet. The results show considerable variability in both the level and the magnitude of the lower cloud deck. The cloud layer is lowest in altitude in the polar region. This might be expected as the temperature profile is cooler in the polar region than over the rest of the planet. The mass content is greatest in the polar and collar regions; however, many of the collar profiles were cut off due to fluctuations resulting from increased turbulence in the collar region. The mass contents are least dense in the midlatitude regions.

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