Spatial and Temporal Variations of Trace Species in Titan's Stratosphere

Details Spatial and Temporal Variations of Trace Species in Titan's Stratosphere Spatial and Temporal Variations of Trace Species in Titan's Stratosphere

Sep 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008dps....40.2005c&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #40, #20.05; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 40, p.422

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Four years into the Cassini-Huygens mission, we present results obtained on Titan's chemical composition by analyzing CIRS data in the far-and mid-IR region. With respect to previous publications (Coustenis et al., 2007, Teanby et al., 2006, 2008; Vinatier et al., 2007) we improved our analysis by exploiting a considerably larger number of nadir spectra, in particular at high resolution (0.53 cm-1). The more complete coverage of Titan's disk, combined with the larger number of spectra at high resolution, allows for the inference of more precise abundances for the trace gases and for a more adequate definition of meridional variations, in particular in the northern regions.
The retrievals of the meridional variations of the trace constituents show an enhancement for some of them towards the North pole. Molecules showing a significant enhancement at northern latitudes are the nitriles (HC3N, HCN) and the complex hydrocarbons (C4H2, C3H4). To a lesser degree, acetylene and ethane also exhibit abundance increases by factors of 1.5-2. The results are tied to predictions by dynamical-photochemical models (Rannou et al., 2005; Lavvas et al., 2008a,b and references therein). The D/H ratio on Titan was also determined from the CH3D band at 8.6 micron and the C2HD band at 678 cm-1 (Coustenis et al., 2008). We compare our results with previous inferences from earlier CIRS and Voyager1/IRIS data and from ISO data taken in 1997.
References
Coustenis, A., et al., 2007, Icarus 189, 35-62 ; 2008 : DOI : 10.1007/s10686-008-9103-z.
Lavvas, P. P., et al., 2008a. Plan. Space Sci. 56, 27-66 ; 2008b. Plan. Space Sci. 56, 67-99.
Rannou, P., et al., 2005. Adv. Space Res. 36, 2194-2198.
Teanby, N. A., et al., 2006. Icarus 181, 243-255; 2008. Icarus 193, 595-611.
Vinatier, S., et al., 2007. Icarus 188, 120-138.

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