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A Heuristic Approach to Examining Volatile Equilibrium at Titan's SurfaceR. D. Lorenz, J. I. Lunine, and C. P. McKay have shown in a manuscript accepted for publication that, for a given ethane abundance and surface temperature, the nitrogen and methane abundances in Titan's atmosphere can be calculated, yielding a surface pressure that can be compared with the observed value. This is potentially a very valuable tool for examining the evolution of Titan's climatology. Its validity does depend on two important assumptions, however: 1) that the atmosphere of Titan is in global radiative equilibrium, and 2) that volatiles present are in vapor equilibrium with the surface. The former assumption has been shown to be likely, but the latter has not. Water vapor in the Earth's atmosphere, in fact, is generally not very close to equilibrium in a global sense. In the present work a heuristic approach is used to examine the likelihood that methane vapor is in equilibrium with Titan's surface. Plausible climate scenerios are examined that are consistent with methane vapor abundances derived from Voyager IRIS data. Simple precipitation and surface diffusion models are incorporated into the analysis. It is tentatively inferred that methane may be in surface equilibrium near the poles, but that equilibrium at low latitudes is more difficult to establish.
Document ID
19990115805
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Samuelson, Robert E.
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD United States)
Date Acquired
August 19, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 1999
Subject Category
Lunar And Planetary Exploration
Meeting Information
Meeting: Division of Planetary Sciences
Location: Padua
Country: Italy
Start Date: October 10, 1999
End Date: October 15, 1999
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.

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