Titan SVRS: Seasonal Climatology of Trace Gases and Haze Opacity

The Titan Seasonally Varying Radiative Species (SVRS) dataset provides trace gas abundances and aerosol opacity data for Saturn's moon Titan. It was created by Nicholas A. Lombardo of Yale University by interpolating measurements from individual Cassini flybys. The dataset includes abundances for seven trace gases and haze opacity across infrared, visible, and ultraviolet spectral windows on a 2° latitude, 5° Ls grid.

Use Cases

• Modeling Titan's atmospheric radiative heating rates based on provided trace gas and aerosol opacity profiles.
• Analyzing seasonal variations in atmospheric composition based on the 5° Ls (solar longitude) grid.
• Studying the vertical distribution of hydrocarbons and nitriles based on the 99-level pressure grid for trace gases.
• Simulating atmospheric circulation using the included Titan Atmospheric Model (TAM) outputs for winds and temperature.

Strengths

• Includes data for seven specific trace gases: C2H6, C2H4, C2H2, p-C3H4, C4H2, HCN, and HC3N.
• Haze opacity data spans a wide spectral range from 1 cm^-1 to 40000 cm^-1.
• Vertical coverage is extensive, with trace gas data on 99 levels from near the surface to 0.001 Pa.
• Accompanied by simulation outputs (TAM) including zonal/meridional winds, temperature, and mass stream function.

Limitations

• A known data issue exists where the 'latitude' array is reversed relative to the 'abundance' array in one file.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

Nicholas A. Lombardo, Yale University

Collection Method

Interpolation of measurements from Cassini spacecraft flybys of Titan.

Geography

Titan (Saturn's moon), with data on a 2° latitude grid.