Condensation during Titan's Polar Winter

Details Condensation during Titan's Polar Winter Condensation during Titan's Polar Winter

Oct 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007dps....39.5611d&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #39, #56.11; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.530

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Titan is currently experiencing winter in its northern hemisphere and the lower atmosphere of its north polar region has been in prolonged darkness since the solstice in October 2002. As a result, the north polar region is currently characterised by cold stratospheric temperatures and there is enrichment of trace gases due to downward atmospheric motion (e.g. Teanby et al., Icarus 181 pp. 243-255, 2006). These conditions make the polar winter very suitable for cloud formation in the stratosphere.
A simple transport and condensation model has been made to explore condensation processes in Titan's northern stratosphere. In the model, the atmosphere is advected downwards and clouds are formed as the saturation pressure of various gases is reached. Upper limits of the gases C4N2 and propionitrile (C2H5CN) were determined from Cassini Composite Infrared Spectrometer data to assess scenarios of chemical disequilibrium where the gas phase is far less abundant than the solid phase. The upper limit for C4N2 is 9e-9, which discounts the massive C4N2 build-up in the polar winter proposed by Samuelson et al. (PSS 45, pp. 941-948, 1997) to explain the observed C4N2 cloud at the Voyager epoch. The propionitrile upper limit is 8e-9, which is several orders of magnitude less than needed to create the condensate feature at 220 cm-1 of Khanna (Icarus 177, pp. 116-121) and de Kok et al. (Icarus, in press), assuming it is propionitrile ice, under the steady-state conditions explored by the aformentioned model. HCN ice seems to play an important role in the formation of a massive polar cloud (Haze B in de Kok et al., Icarus, in press), because of the unavailability of sufficient condensable gas other than HCN (and possibly HC3N) to produce the condensate features seen in far-infrared spectra at 220 cm-1.

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