Studying the Atmospheric Eddies of Titan

A non-monotonic eddy diffusivity profile of Titan's atmosphere revealed by cassini observations

Authors:

Li et al


Abstract:

Recent measurements from the limb-view soundings of Cassini/CIRS and the stellar occultations from Cassini/UVIS revealed the complete vertical profiles of minor species (e.g., C2H2 and C2H4) from 100 to 1000km in the atmosphere of Titan. In this study, we developed an inversion technique to retrieve the eddy diffusion profile using C2H2 as a tracer species. The retrieved eddy profile features a low eddy diffusion zone near the altitude of the detached haze layer (∼550km), which could be a consequence of stabilization through aerosol heating. Photochemical modeling results using the retrieved eddy profile are in better agreement with the Cassini measurements than previous models. The underestimation of C2H4 in the stratosphere has been a long-standing problem in planetary photochemical modeling, and the new eddy diffusion profile does not solve this problem. In order to match the observations, we suggest a new expression for the rate coefficient of the key reaction, H+C2H4+M⟶C2H5+M. The new reaction rate coefficient is estimated to be ∼10 times lower than that used by Moses et al. (2005)'s model, and should be validated in the laboratory and tested against the hydrocarbon chemistry of giant planets.