Latitudinal variations in Neptune's temperature profile observed with ALMA

TL;DR

This study uses ALMA data and MCMC retrieval methods to map Neptune's atmospheric temperature and CO distribution, revealing latitudinal variations and evidence of recent cometary impact effects.

Contribution

Developed novel MCMC retrieval techniques to analyze ALMA observations, unveiling Neptune's complex thermal structure and CO distribution across latitudes.

Findings

CO abundance is 2-3 times higher in the stratosphere than in the troposphere.

Temperature profiles vary with latitude, showing a cold polar layer at 300-600 mbar.

Thermal structures are consistent with Voyager 2 data at some levels, but show new features at others.

Abstract

Despite the low solar irradiation it receives, Neptune shows a very active atmosphere with some of the most intense dynamics observed in Solar System atmospheres. Characterizing the atmospheric temperature profiles of the planet is a key to understand these observed processes. In this work, we derived the Neptune pressure-latitude thermal field, using 2016 ALMA measurements of the CO(3-2) spectral line at 345.796 GHz, with a spatial resolution of about 0.37" on Neptune's 2.24" disk. To analyse the data, we developed MCMC retrieval methods to derive both the temperature profiles and the CO abundance profile. We find that our data probes the upper troposphere and the lower stratosphere of the planet, between 2 bar and 0.1 mbar. Although temperature and CO profile are strongly correlated, simultaneous retrievals of both parameters for disk-integrated observations reveal a factor of 2-3 larger CO abundance in the stratosphere than in the troposphere, reinforcing the hypothesis of CO delivery by a recent cometary impact. CO retrievals with fixed temperature profile do not fit the spatially-resolved observations, implying underlying temperature variations. By performing temperature retrievals with spatially constant CO, we find distinct trends of the thermal profile between the southern polar region, mid-latitudes and the equator. At 10--100 mbar, this structure is consistent with that observed by Voyager 2 in 1989, i.e. colder mid-latitudes, with a warmer equator and south polar regions. At 300-600 mbar, however, we find a cold layer of about 45 K at Southern polar regions (-80{\deg}) which disappears towards mid-latitudes and the equator. By probing pressure levels not easily accessible to other observing methods e.g. infrared sounding, submillimeter observations offer a new view of the complex thermal structure in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere of the Icy Giants.