Theoretical estimation of the radiative cooling rate in the Jovian troposphere
Abstract
Jupiter exhibits characteristic cloud activities but their physical mechanism remains poorly understood. Recently, Sugiyama et al. (2014) demonstrated that the Jovian cloud convection may have a significant intermittency in the generation of cumulonimbus clouds with the typical interval length controlled by the radiative cooling rate in the upper troposphere. In spite of such importance as a controlling factor of cloud activity, the tropospheric radiative cooling rate profile has never been systematically quantified for the Jovian system. In the Jovian troposphere, condensable species (NH3, H2S, H2O) and their condensates might significantly contribute to radiative transfer.Here we show numerical estimates of radiative cooling rate profile under Jovian troposphere condition by using our non-gray radiative transfer model that contains optical properties of gas species (H2, He, H2O, CH4, NH3, H2S, and PH3) and cloud layers made of H2O, NH4SH, and NH3 ice particles. The temperature profile is determined by the radiative-convective equilibrium state satisfying an observed potential temperature of Jovian troposphere. The mean vertical distributions of gas and cloud are given on the basis of the latest hydrodynamic simulation of Jovian cloud convection (Sugiyama et al., 2014) and cosmochemical consideration.The modeled atmosphere has the tropopause at ~0.38 bar level. The radiative cooling rate reaches the maximum 15 x 10-3 K/Jovian day at ~0.5 bar level, then decreases with depth and approaches zero below 5 bar level. This profile is largely determined by the thermal absorption and emission due to gaseous NH3 and H2 with a slight modification by solar heating due to CH4. The cloud layers are found to have only a weak effect on either radiative cooling or heating because their opacities in the longwave radiation are estimated to be very small, which agrees with the observed 5-micron spectrum with high brightness temperatures. The uncertainty in H2O abundance in deep troposphere would not affect the radiative cooling because H2O mostly condenses out in the deep region with large optical depths for longwave radiation.
- Publication:
-
AAS/Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting Abstracts #47
- Pub Date:
- November 2015
- Bibcode:
- 2015DPS....4740007T