Indication of a Near Surface Cloud Layer on Venus from Reanalysis of Venera 13/14 Spectrophotometer Data

Details Indication of a Near Surface Cloud Layer on Venus from Reanalysis of Venera 13/14 Spectrophotometer Data Indication of a Near Surface Cloud Layer on Venus from Reanalysis of Venera 13/14 Spectrophotometer Data

Dec 2003

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2003dps....35.3709g&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #35, #37.09; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 35, p.1487

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In 1982, Venera 13 and 14 reached the surface of Venus as the last, most developed probes of the Venera lander series. During the descent, the spec\-tro\-pho\-to\-me\-ter measured the radiance inside the atmosphere at different directions and wavelengths. In January 2005, the Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer (DISR) on board the Huygens probe will make similar observations --- albeit at higher spatial and spectral resolution --- during its descent through Titan's atmosphere. To retrieve the optical properties from DISR data, the Titan Inverse Radiation Model ({\sf T!RM}) has been developed.
Deep in an optically thick atmosphere like Venus', the volume extinction coefficient can approximately be estimated from zenith and nadir radiances. The respective analysis of Venera spectrophotometer data at high vertical resolution yields a pronounced peak of extinction 1--2 km above the surface of Venus.
To check wether this peak could be an artefact due to the neglection of the near surface in the analytical approximation applied, we alternatively reconstruct the extinction profile with {\sf T!RM}. The radiative transfer computations imply assimilation of Venera 14 measurements at 705 nm and take into account the surface considering different albedo values. The modeled extinction profiles differ only marginally from the analytical approximation (cf. figure), supporting the indication of a pronounced layer of increased extinction, possibly due to clouds. The peak 1--2 km above the surface shows also up for Venera 13 data and over the complete observed wavelength range of 480--1140 nm.
This work was supported by the German Aerospace Center (DLR), contract number 50 OH 98044.

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