کد مقاله | کد نشریه | سال انتشار | مقاله انگلیسی | نسخه تمام متن |
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1782507 | 1022341 | 2007 | 6 صفحه PDF | دانلود رایگان |

We have developed a new method to analyse in situ observations of atmospheric variables of state: the reconstruction of the vertical temperature profile from pressure measurements accompanied by rough knowledge of the atmospheric composition and the aerodynamical response properties of the descent vehicle. We can use the method to construct the temperature profile when no direct measurements are available, as well as to analyse the consistency between data from different instruments. We applied the method to the Huygens measurements of Titan's atmosphere, determining the aerodynamical drag properties from radar altimeter data. We discovered that the temperature profile computed in this manner differs from the profile from the temperature sensor (TEM) of the probe by up to 5% in the altitude range of 0–60 km, and up to 10% at higher altitudes due to increased noise. The method gives a tropopause altitude of about 50 km and a surface temperature of about 98 K, in contrast to the TEM temperature measurements. Our error analysis shows that these differences are caused by the known discrepancy in the Huygens altimeter data, with the estimates made by the reconstruction algorithm contributing only 1–2% of error.
Journal: Planetary and Space Science - Volume 55, Issue 14, November 2007, Pages 2071–2076