Titan's Temperature and Zonal Wind Structure and Seasonal Behavior
Abstract
Titan's atmosphere near 80 km (20 mbar) marks the transition between large radiative damping times at lower altitudes, where seasonal variations are muted, and small damping times higher up, where temperatures and winds vary significantly over the year. Cassini CIRS and Radio-Occultation measurements obtained in 2004-2016 have tracked the evolution of temperatures and winds in Titan's atmosphere from early northern winter to late spring. In winter, the northern hemisphere was characterized by cold temperatures at high latitudes in the lower stratosphere and a strong circumpolar vortex that extended to subtropical northern latitudes. At high altitudes over the north pole, there was an elevated stratopause with a temperature roughly 30 K above the seasonal average, associated with subsidence and adiabatic warming. As the northern hemisphere has moved toward summer the dissolution of the circumpolar vortex has been gradual, and there is no evidence of rapid distortion and disruption forced by planetary waves like that seen on Earth. During this time, the southern hemisphere has cooled fairly abruptly at high latitudes. A circumpolar vortex has formed in the stratosphere, but it is more compact than seen in the north, with maximum winds at 60°S. Potential vorticity maps now indicate steep meridional gradients at high southern latitudes, implying a barrier to efficient mixing between the polar region and lower latitudes. One of the curious features of Titan's temperatures has been the destabilization seen in the winter north polar region, where negative temperature gradients were observed between 80 and 100 km. As the southern hemisphere moves toward winter, temperatures retrieved from radio occultation soundings have shown the early development this phenomenon at high southernlatitudes. The cause of the destabilization in winter may be associated with a cloud of organic ices. However, the transition region near 80 km is also where the zonal winds exhibit a sharp minimum, first seen by the Huygens Probe near 10°S, but later shown to exist globally from analysis of radio occultation soundings. The cause of this peculiar behavior is not really understood, but it is reasonable that momentum damping of the zonal winds in the tropopause region and lower stratosphere by breaking gravity waves may play a role.
- Publication:
-
Titan Aeronomy and Climate
- Pub Date:
- June 2016
- Bibcode:
- 2016tac..confE..40F