The seasonal cycle of Titan's methane clouds

Details The seasonal cycle of Titan's methane clouds The seasonal cycle of Titan's methane clouds

Dec 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agufm.p13a0159m&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2006, abstract #P13A-0159

Other

0545 Modeling (4255), 3346 Planetary Meteorology (5445, 5739), 5210 Planetary Atmospheres, Clouds, And Hazes (0343), 6281 Titan

Scientific paper

The most robust cloud feature observed on Titan over the past several years, its south polar clouds, have completely dissipated. Certainly the seasonal cycle of instolation has much to do with this event. But cloud features at midlatitudes are not in-phase with the distribution of solar forcing, so some internal mechanism must be providing a time-lag. We present results of an axisymmetric global circulation model of Titan with a simplified suite of atmospheric physics forced by seasonally varying insolation. We find in this work that clouds appear in regions of convergence by the mean meridional circulation and over the poles during solstices, where the solar forcing reaches its seasonal maximum. Other regions are inhibited from forming clouds due to dynamical transports of methane and strong subsidence. We find that for a variety of moist regimes, i.e. with the effect of methane thermodynamics included, the observed cloud features can be explained by the large-scale dynamics of the atmosphere. Clouds at the solsticial pole are found to be a robust feature of Titan's dynamics, while isolated midlatitude clouds are present exclusively in a variety of moist dynamical regimes. In all cases, even without including methane thermodynamics, our model ceases to produce polar clouds around 4-6 terrestrial years after solstices, which is roughly the time they were observed to dissipate.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

The seasonal cycle of Titan's methane clouds 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 The seasonal cycle of Titan's methane clouds, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and The seasonal cycle of Titan's methane clouds will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-960958