Other
Scientific paper
Dec 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011agufm.p33e1790k&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2011, abstract #P33E-1790
Other
[6281] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Titan
Scientific paper
The Cassini spacecraft has revealed a vast set of lakes/seas filled or partially filled with liquid hydrocarbons and empty lake basins in the high latitudes of Titan. The seas and lakes of Titan provide an opportunity to explore an exciting aqueous environment whose characteristics are very different from what we know on Earth. The lakes appear in various shapes and sizes and are filled with liquid hydrocarbons, primarily methane and ethane. Recently, the Cassini spacecraft provided observations suggesting for the first time temporal variations in lake surfaces. The variation in the shorelines can be explained by different hypothesis including evaporation and tides. During Titan's 16 day orbital period around Saturn, the time-dependent tidal response of the lakes may affect the shorelines. Although the estimated tidal amplitudes by theoretical consideration yield smaller than the observed depth changes on Ontario Lacus, tides can have more significant effects of other lakes/seas with tidal amplitudes up to several meters. In the present study, besides Ontario Lacus we also consider Ligeia Mare, one of three large methane seas discovered by Cassini in the northern hemisphere of Titan and the target for the discovery mission of Titan Mare Explorer (TiME). The tidal response of Titan's lakes an seas are investigated by means of two- dimensional nonlinear shallow water equations The governing partial differential equations on the sphere are solved using SLIM (Second-generation Louvain- la- Neuve Ice-Ocean Model - http://www.climate.be/SLIM). SLIM is a hydrodynamical model based on finite element method. As all general circulation models, it uses primitive variables as prognostic quantities. Partial differential equations are discretized on curved surfaces using triangular meshes. The mesh is generated from recursive subdivisions of the faces of an icosahedron using GMSH software.. The code has a wetting-drying algorithm. The simulations can take into account several parameters such as the surface winds, viscosity, shoreline slopes and variable bathymetry.
Deleersnijder Eric
Demain C.
Karatekin Ö.
No associations
LandOfFree
Tidal Response of Titan's Lakes and Seas 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 Tidal Response of Titan's Lakes and Seas, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Tidal Response of Titan's Lakes and Seas will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-871018