Vertical And Meridional Distribution Of Various Hydrocarbons In Saturn's Stratosphere From Cassini/ Cirs Limb Observations.

Details Vertical And Meridional Distribution Of Various Hydrocarbons In Saturn's Stratosphere From Cassini/ Cirs Limb Observations. Vertical And Meridional Distribution Of Various Hydrocarbons In Saturn's Stratosphere From Cassini/ Cirs Limb Observations.

Sep 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008dps....40.3505g&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #40, #35.05; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 40, p.459

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Saturn's stratosphere harbors a rich photochemistry initiated by the photolysis of methane (CH4) by solar UV at high altitude, leading to the formation of many hydrocarbons. Their vertical profiles are governed by their chemical lifetime as well as vertical motions (molecular and eddy diffusion, vertical advection). Their variations with time and latitude are due to seasonal changes in the incoming UV flux, which modulates the hydrocarbons production and destruction rates, and are also affected by the meridional circulation in the stratosphere of Saturn, still poorly known.
We have analyzed limb observations performed by the Composite InfraRed Spectrometer (CIRS) instrument onboard the Cassini spacecraft, in order to investigate the temperature and composition of Saturn's stratosphere. Spectra were acquired at twenty different latitudes between 80°S and 45°N from March 2005 to January 2008, which corresponds to mid-summer in the southern hemisphere. Using a line-by-line radiative transfer model, we were able to retrieve the temperature vertical profiles, as well as the volume mixing ratio vertical profiles of acetylene (C2H2) and ethane (C2H6) from 5 mbar to 5 µbar and propane (C3H8) around 1 mbar. Our data analysis brings new and precious information at high altitude, with a high vertical resolution as well as an extended latitudinal coverage with respect to previous observations.
We will present our results about the vertical and meridional distribution of these hydrocarbons and compare our retrieved abundances with previous measurements by Greathouse et al. (2005) and Howett et al. (2007). We will also analyze our derived distributions in the light of photochemical models (Moses and Greathouse, 2005) and discuss what constraints can we bring on the chemistry and dynamical phenomona in Saturn's stratosphere.

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