Difference in the vertical structure of cloud layers of giant planets

Details Difference in the vertical structure of cloud layers of giant planets Difference in the vertical structure of cloud layers of giant planets

Jun 2001

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001kfnt...17..261m&link_type=abstract

Kinematika i Fizika Nebesnykh Tel, vol. 17, no. 3, p. 261-278

Physics

Scientific paper

Based on the deviation of the vertical structure of the cloud layer from the homogeneity condition determined from the analyses of spectrophotometric observations of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, we demonstrate that these observations may be interpreted within the scope of the model of a single optically inhomogeneous cloud layer of finite optical thickness with a pure gas layer below it. The optical thickness of a cloud layer aerosol and the parameter beta at wavelength lambda 864 nm are: tau_a = 8.7, beta = 0.00635 at ln Nl = -1.75 (Nl is a amount of methane along the line-of-sight in km-amagat) for Jupiter; 13, 0.00530 at ln Nl = -1.55 for Saturn; 1.1, 0.346 at ln Nl = 2.53 for Uranus; and 1, 0.235 at ln Nl = 2.92 for Neptune. It was also shown for Uranus and Neptune that 1) the observational data on the combination spectrum intensity and the plots ln(Nl/{tau}_s) versus ln Nl for the methane absorption bands can be interpreted only with a mean geometric radius of particles of 0.049±0.005 mum for Uranus and 0.069±0.007 mum for Neptune (with a real part of refractive index of 1.33 and the lognormal size distribution of particles and a size dispersion of 0.1 in the model) and 2) the methane mixing ratio is 0.010 for Uranus and 0.027 for Neptune. We calculated the spectral values of parameters beta for all planets at the same atmospheric level as well as approximate vertical profiles of beta(Nl) and tau_a(Nl) at lambda 864 nm on the assumption that the real part of refractive index end the mean geometric radius of particles do not vary with depth.

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