Venus

Effect Of Clouds On Emission Spectra For Super Venus

By Keith Cowing
astro-ph.EP]
December 9, 2021
Filed under ,
Effect Of Clouds On Emission Spectra For Super Venus
(a) emission spectra calculated for (b) 4 different temperature profiles and assumption on clouds: 1) zt = 70 km and H = 3.8 km (black and blue line), 2) zt = 65 km, H= 2 km (green line), 3) zt = 61 km, H = 1.5 km (red line).

We report a model study on the effects of clouds on emission spectra of super-Venus planets. Our goal is to assess possible ways to identify characteristic spectral features due to clouds.

We show that it is possible to distinguish an impact of H2SO4 clouds on the CO2 absorption band at 4.8 micron for temperature profiles with and without a thermal inversion. The thermal inversion can help to distinguish the signal from high altitude clouds (85 km, ~1 mbar).

Featureless emission spectra are found for high altitude clouds (85 km, ~1 mbar) with temperature profile without thermal inversion. More spectral features appear in the emission spectra with decreasing cloud top altitudes. The compactness of clouds has an inverse effect on emission spectra than cloud top altitudes. Small cloud scale heights reduce the signal and the CO2 absorption bands become flat.

Paulina Wolkenberg, Diego Turrini

Comments: 20 pages, 3 figures
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as: arXiv:2112.04587 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2112.04587v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
Submission history
From: Paulina Wolkenberg
[v1] Wed, 8 Dec 2021 20:43:34 UTC (807 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.04587
Astrobiology,

Keith Cowing

Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Station Payload manager/space biologist, Away Teams, Journalist, Lapsed climber, Synaesthete, Na’Vi-Jedi-Freman-Buddhist-mix, ASL, Devon Island and Everest Base Camp veteran, (he/him) 🖖🏻

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