Imaging and mapping Titan's clouds over 3.5 years with VIMS/Cassini: implications for Titan's climatology

Details Imaging and mapping Titan's clouds over 3.5 years with VIMS/Cassini: implications for Titan's climatology Imaging and mapping Titan's clouds over 3.5 years with VIMS/Cassini: implications for Titan's climatology

Sep 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008epsc.conf..658r&link_type=abstract

European Planetary Science Congress 2008, Proceedings of the conference held 21-25 September, 2008 in Münster, Germany. Online a

Mathematics

Logic

Scientific paper

We show here the first comprehensive mapping of the occurrence and location of Titan's clouds, detected thanks to their spectral signatures in the complete Cassini/VIMS (Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer) data archive between July 2004 and December 2007. During this period, which includes the beginning of the transition between the south summer solstice and the spring equinox, we have detected more than one hundred cloud events. These clouds are clustered in latitudes in three specific regions: 1) The South Pole with 9-month periodic bursts, 2) long-lived large clouds at the North Pole, 3) transient temperate clouds centered around 40°S, uniformly distributed in longitudes. The VIMS observations reported here are consistent with a control of cloud spatial distribution by the global atmospheric circulation patterns rather than by geographic distribution of methane sources at the surface. The cloud's southern activity tends to fade with time, as the forthcoming Titan equinox nears. If so, spectacular meteorological events like the disappearance of southern clouds and the sudden toppling over of the meteorological events towards the northern hemisphere should be observable during the Cassini extended mission.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Imaging and mapping Titan's clouds over 3.5 years with VIMS/Cassini: implications for Titan's climatology does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Imaging and mapping Titan's clouds over 3.5 years with VIMS/Cassini: implications for Titan's climatology, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Imaging and mapping Titan's clouds over 3.5 years with VIMS/Cassini: implications for Titan's climatology will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1794026