Titan's zonal winds in its lower stratosphere
Abstract
Titan's atmosphere near 80 km (20 mbar) marks the transition between lower altitudes, where radiative damping times are large and seasonal variations are muted, and higher higher altitudes, where the damping times are much smaller and temperatures and winds vary significantly over the year. Cassini radio occultation soundings at high northern latitudes in winter have indicated a sharp transition from a highly stable temperature profile in the lower stratosphere to a layer between 80 and 100 km where temperatures decrease with altitude. The cause of this destabilization may be associated with the enhanced infrared opacity of a cloud of organic ices. It is curious that 20 mbar is also the level where the Doppler Wind Experiment on the Huygens Probe at 10° S observed a deep minimum in the zonal wind profile. Application of the gradient wind relation to the altitude-pressure profiles obtained from the Cassini radio occultation soundings have shown that this minimum is global. More recent soundings, obtained as Titan's southern hemisphere moves toward winter, indicate that this structure persists. The cause of this peculiar behavior is not really understood, but the the deceleration of the zonal winds observed in the lower stratosphere may be caused by radiative damping of vertically propagating atmospheric waves in a region where the damping time decreases rapidly with altitude.
- Publication:
-
AAS/Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting Abstracts #48
- Pub Date:
- October 2016
- Bibcode:
- 2016DPS....4851501F