Titan's Surface Temperatures Maps from Cassini - CIRS Observations

Details Titan's Surface Temperatures Maps from Cassini - CIRS Observations Titan's Surface Temperatures Maps from Cassini - CIRS Observations

Sep 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009dps....41.3602c&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #41, #36.02

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The Cassini Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) observations of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, are providing us with the ability to detect the surface temperature of the planet by studying its outgoing radiance through a spectral window in the thermal infrared at 19 μm (530 cm-1) characterized by low opacity. Since the first acquisitions of CIRS Titan data the instrument has gathered a large amount of spectra covering a wide range of latitudes, longitudes and local times.
We retrieve the surface temperature and the atmospheric temperature profile by modeling proper zonally averaged spectra of nadir observations with radiative transfer computations. Our forward model uses the correlated-k approximation for spectral opacity to calculate the emitted radiance, including contributions from collision induced pairs of CH4, N2 and H2, haze, and gaseous emission lines (Irwin et al. 2008). The retrieval method uses a non-linear least-squares optimal estimation technique to iteratively adjust the model parameters to achieve a spectral fit (Rodgers 2000).
We show an accurate selection of the wide amount of data available in terms of footprint diameter on the planet and observational conditions, together with the retrieved results. Our results represent formal retrievals of surface brightness temperatures from the Cassini CIRS dataset using a full radiative transfer treatment, and we compare to the earlier findings of Jennings et al. (2009). In future, application of our methodology over wide areas should greatly increase the planet coverage and accuracy of our knowledge of Titan's surface brightness temperature.
References:
Irwin, P.G.J., et al.: "The NEMESIS planetary atmosphere radiative transfer and retrieval tool" (2008). JQSRT, Vol. 109, pp. 1136-1150, 2008.
Rodgers, C. D.: "Inverse Methods For Atmospheric Sounding: Theory and Practice". World Scientific, Singapore, 2000.
Jennings, D.E., et al.: "Titan's Surface Brightness Temperatures." Ap. J. L., Vol. 691, pp. L103-L105, 2009.

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