Characterizing the Heat Flow from Between Enceladus' Tiger Stripes

Enceladus' heat flow provides a fundamental constraint on its tidal dissipation mechanisms, orbital evolution, and the physical processes that generate the plumes. Determining the total amount of emission is proving difficult, as different techniques produce differing constraints. For example, an initial estimate of this value, 5.8±1.3 GW, was made by Spencer et al. (2006) using Cassini Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) 600 to 1100 cm-1 observations, which was refined using 10 to 600 cm-1 CIRS observations to 15.8±3.1 GW by Howett et al. (2011). However, recent reanalysis of high-spatial resolution 10 to 1100 cm-1 CIRS observations of Enceladus' active south polar region conducted by Spencer and Howett gives a heat flow of 4.64±0.23 GW. Whilst all of these heat flow estimates are much larger than those expected in a steady state, 1.1 GW (Meyer and Wisdom, 2007), their obvious discrepancy is a puzzle. In this work we seek to help understand these discrepancies by determining how much endogenic heat flow is coming from the funiscular terrain between Enceladus active tiger stripes.