Microwave Sounding of the Giant Planets

Details Microwave Sounding of the Giant Planets Microwave Sounding of the Giant Planets

Jan 1996

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1996icar..119...67k&link_type=abstract

Icarus, Volume 119, Issue 1, pp. 67-89.

Physics

2

Scientific paper

We systematically explore the sensitivity of the microwave spectra of the giant planets to the vertical profiles of temperature and condensible absorbers. We find that the spectrum at centimeter wavelengths is largely insensitive to vertical profile of temperature, but generally is sensitive to the relative humidities (RH) of the condensible absorbers. Under a wide variety of plausible conditions, gaseous ammonia dominates the microwave opacity, and the spectra can be used to retrieve the vertical profile of its relative humidity. We examine the ammonia relative humidity profiles implied by the spectra of Uranus and Saturn. For moderate enhancements of H_2S above its solar value (<10), the microwave spectrum of Uranus depends primarily on the NH_3 relative humidity at wavelengths longward of 1 cm, out to at least 5 cm, depending on whether there are thick water clouds. The implied vertical variation in the relative humidity of NH_3 is small in the temperature range 140 to 250 K, confined to the range 0.05 to 0.35%. The reported meridional variation in brightness temperatures at 2 and 6 cm can be interpreted as a factor of 10 variation in the relative humidity, with the largest relative humidities occurring near 20 degS, where temperatures are coldest. Part of the 6-cm brightness temperature variation may be attributable to meridional variations in the opacity of thick water clouds. On Saturn, the vertical variation of relative humidity is greater. At temperatures less than 152 K, ammonia is saturated, but at deeper levels, it follows a curve such at d ln RH/d ln P = -4.5, which corresponds nearly to a constant mole fraction, down to temperatures >230 K.

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