Spatial Variations in Titan's Atmospheric Temperature: ALMA and Cassini Comparisons from 2012 to 2015

TL;DR

This study uses ALMA and Cassini data to analyze Titan's atmospheric temperature variations from 2012 to 2015, revealing small seasonal changes and demonstrating the effectiveness of CO emission lines as temperature probes.

Contribution

The paper introduces high-resolution ALMA observations of Titan's atmosphere, comparing them with Cassini data, and validates CO emission lines as reliable tracers of atmospheric temperature.

Findings

Small seasonal temperature variations observed in Titan's atmosphere.

ALMA's sensitivity complements Cassini measurements effectively.

Temperature profiles vary with latitude by up to 15 K.

Abstract

Submillimeter emission lines of carbon monoxide (CO) in Titan's atmosphere provide excellent probes of atmospheric temperature due to the molecule's long chemical lifetime and stable, well constrained volume mixing ratio. Here we present the analysis of 4 datasets obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) from 2012 to 2015 that contain strong CO rotational transitions. Utilizing ALMA's high spatial resolution in the 2012, 2014, and 2015 observations, we extract spectra from 3 separate regions on Titan's disk using datasets with beam sizes of ~0.3''. Temperature profiles retrieved by the NEMESIS radiative transfer code are compared to Cassini Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) and radio occultation science results from similar latitude regions. Small seasonal variations in atmospheric temperature are present from 2012 to 2015 in the stratosphere and mesosphere (~100-500 km) of spatially resolved regions. We measure the stratopause (320 km) to increase in temperature by 5 K in northern latitudes from 2012-2015, while temperatures rise throughout the stratosphere at lower latitudes. While retrieved temperature profiles cover a range of latitudes in these observations, deviations from CIRS nadir maps and radio occultation measurements convolved with the ALMA beam-footprint are not found to be statistically significant, and discrepancies are often found to be less than 5 K throughout the atmosphere. ALMA's excellent sensitivity in the lower stratosphere (60-300 km) provides a highly complementary dataset to contemporary CIRS and radio science observations. The demonstrated utility of CO emission lines in the submillimeter as a tracer of Titan's atmospheric temperature lays the groundwork for future studies of other molecular species, as temperature profiles are found to consistently vary with latitude in all three years by up to 15 K.