Europlanet Science Congress 2020
Virtual meeting
21 September – 9 October 2020
Europlanet Science Congress 2020
Virtual meeting
21 September – 9 October 2020
EPSC Abstracts
Vol. 14, EPSC2020-593, 2020, updated on 14 May 2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2020-593
Europlanet Science Congress 2020
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Constraints on aerosol structure and formation in the atmosphere of the ice giants from microphysics simulations

Daniel Toledo1, Patrick Irwin2, Pascal Rannou3, Leigh Fletcher4, and Margarita Yela1
Daniel Toledo et al.
  • 1Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial (INTA), Spain
  • 2University of Oxford, UK
  • 3University of Reims, France
  • 4University of Leicester, UK

A number of images and analyses have demonstrated the presence of hazes and clouds in the atmosphere of the ice giants. While the formation of hazes is attributed to the methane dissociation in the high stratosphere by solar UV and energetic particles that leads to a number of chemical reactions (e.g. Moses et al., Icarus, 307, 2018), the observed clouds are the result of the condensation of CH4 and H2S in the troposphere (e.g. Irwin et al., Nature Astronomy, 2018). However, the lack of current limb observations taken at different tangent heights limits our knowledge about the vertical structure and optical properties of these aerosols. In this work, we will present different results obtained with a coupled cloud-haze microphysical model (Toledo et at., Icarus, 333, 2019; Toledo et at., Icarus, 350, 2020) used to constrain the particle size, density, vertical structure and time scale of aerosols in the ice giants. Our simulations show, among other results, high precipitation rates at pressures greater than 0.5 bar and timescales ranging from years (for the haze) to a few hours (CH4 clouds).

How to cite: Toledo, D., Irwin, P., Rannou, P., Fletcher, L., and Yela, M.: Constraints on aerosol structure and formation in the atmosphere of the ice giants from microphysics simulations, Europlanet Science Congress 2020, online, 21 Sep–9 Oct 2020, EPSC2020-593, https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2020-593, 2020.