Related papers: Titan's transport-driven methane cycle
Jupiter's weather layer exhibits long-term and quasi-periodic cycles of meteorological activity that can completely change the appearance of its belts and zones. There are cycles with intervals from 4 to 9 years, dependent on the latitude,…
Tidal effects in planetary systems are the main driver in the orbital migration of natural satellites. They result from physical processes occurring deep inside celestial bodies, whose effects are rarely observable from surface imaging. For…
The Cassini-Huygens space mission revealed that Titan s thick brownish haze is initiated high in the atmosphere at about 1000 km of altitude, before a slow transportation down to the surface. Close to the surface at altitudes below 130 km,…
The clouds have a great impact on Venus's energy budget and climate evolution, but its three-dimensional structure is still not well understood. Here we incorporate a simple Venus cloud physics scheme into a flexible GCM to investigate the…
Saturn's Moon Titan receives volatiles into the top of its atmosphere-including atomic oxygen-sourced from cryovolcanoes on Enceladus. Similar types of atmosphere exchange from one body to another, such as O2 and O3 sourced from TRAPPIST-1…
Lyman-$\alpha$ transits provide an opportunity to test models of atmospheric escape directly. However, translating observations into constraints on the properties of the escaping atmosphere is challenging. The major reason for this is that…
We study the seasonal evolution of Titan's lower stratosphere (around 15~mbar) in order to better understand the atmospheric dynamics and chemistry in this part of the atmosphere. We analysed Cassini/CIRS far-IR observations from 2006 to…
High speeds have been measured at seep and mud-volcano sites expelling methane-rich fluids from the seabed. Thermal or solute-driven convection alone cannot explain such high velocities in low-permeability sediments. Here, we demonstrate…
In an Earth-analogue atmosphere, water vapour is a key carrier of hydrogen in the lower atmosphere with its transport above the tropopause controlling the atmospheric hydrogen escape rate. On the Earth, this escape is limited by transport…
Airborne dust is the main climatic agent in the Martian environment. Local dust storms play a key role in the dust cycle; yet their life cycle is poorly known. Here we use mesoscale modeling that includes the transport of radiatively active…
The Sun, aside from its eleven year sunspot cycle is additionally subject to long term variation in its activity. In this work we analyse a solar-like convective dynamo simulation, containing approximately 60 magnetic cycles, exhibiting…
We discuss constraints on the rates of stirring and dissipation of MHD turbulence in molecular clouds. Recent MHD simulations suggest that turbulence in clouds decays rapidly, thus providing a significant source of energy input,…
The ocean thermohaline circulation, also called meridional overturning circulation, is caused by water density contrasts. This circulation has large capacity of carrying heat around the globe and it thus affects the energy budget and…
The Cassini-Huygens mission detected large negative ions in Titan's ionosphere at pressures as low as $10^{-6}$ torr. These ions ultimately polymerize to form Titan's complex organic haze particles, which are observed throughout the…
The observations made during the Voyager 2 flyby have shown that the stratosphere of Uranus and Neptune are warmer than expected by previous models. In addition, no seasonal variability of the thermal structure has been observed on Uranus…
We have studied the temperature dependence of the solubility of nitrogen in methane, ethane, and mixtures of methane and ethane using vapor-liquid equilibrium simulations of binary and ternary mixtures of nitrogen, methane and ethane for a…
Accurate estimation of global terrestrial evapotranspiration (ET) is essential to understanding changes in the water cycle, which are expected to intensify in the context of climate change. Current global ET products are derived from…
Wind shear measured by Doppler tracking of the Huygens probe is evaluated, and found to be within the range anticipated by pre-flight assessments (namely less than two times the Brunt-Vaisala frequency). The strongest large-scale shear…
In this article I summarize the current state of knowledge about the composition of Titan's atmosphere, and our current understanding of the suggested chemistry that leads to that observed composition. I begin with our present knowledge of…
The hydrocarbons seas of Titan, discovered by Cassini/Huygens mission are among the most mysterious and interesting features of this moon. In the future, a possible dedicated planetary probe, will certainly measure the speed of sound in…