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Atmosphere
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Planetary Atmospheres: From Solar System to Exoplanets
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Planetary Atmospheres: From Solar System to Exoplanets

A special issue of Atmosphere (ISSN 2073-4433). This special issue belongs to the section "Planetary Atmospheres".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (22 November 2022) | Viewed by 18185

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Pedro Mota Machado

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Insitute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences, PORTORua das Estrelas, 4150-762 Porto, Portugal
Interests: atmospheres; atmosphere's dynamics; spectroscopy; cloud-tracking; atmospheric composition; exoplanets; astrobyology; ARIEL space mission
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

There is currently a considerable effort from the science community to study the planetary atmospheres, within and beyond our Solar System. Nevertheless, the knowledge of all mechanisms at work on Solar System telluric planet atmospheres' is still limited. An understanding of the dominant factors and mechanisms controlling the atmospheric general circulation and its chemical composition is a prerequisite to our understanding of planets' climate variability and evolution. In this context, Venus, Mars are natural comparative laboratories to investigate diversity of circulation regimes and composition of terrestrial planets' atmospheres. Atmospheres of telluric planets, as Mars and Venus, temporal and spatial variability of winds, the role of waves and the mechanisms that allow topography to influence the upper cloud motions need to be addressed and these will be our next focus of interest. 

Prof. Dr. Pedro Mota Machado
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Atmosphere is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Atmospheres
  • Rocky planets
  • Atmosphere dynamics
  • Atmospheric waves
  • Atmosphere’s modeling

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 2656 KiB  
Article
Reanalyzing Jupiter ISO/SWS Data through a More Recent Atmospheric Model
by José Ribeiro, Pedro Machado, Santiago Pérez-Hoyos, João A. Dias and Patrick Irwin
Atmosphere 2023, 14(12), 1731; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos14121731 - 24 Nov 2023
Viewed by 830
Abstract
The study of isotopic ratios in planetary atmospheres gives an insight into the formation history and evolution of these objects. The more we can constrain these ratios, the better we can understand the history and future of our solar system. To help in [...] Read more.
The study of isotopic ratios in planetary atmospheres gives an insight into the formation history and evolution of these objects. The more we can constrain these ratios, the better we can understand the history and future of our solar system. To help in this endeavour, we used Infrared Space Observatory Short Wavelength Spectrometer (ISO/SWS) Jupiter observations in the 793–1500 cm−1 region together with the Nonlinear Optimal Estimator for MultivariatE Spectral analySIS (NEMESIS) radiative transfer suite to retrieve the temperature–pressure profile and the chemical abundances for various chemical species. We also used the 1500–2499 cm−1 region to determine the cloud and aerosol structure of the upper troposphere. We obtained a best-fit simulated spectrum with χ2/N=0.47 for the 793–1500 cm−1 region and χ2/N=0.71 for the 1500–2499 cm−1 region. From the retrieved methane abundances, we obtained, within a 1σ uncertainty, a 12C/13C ratio of 84 ± 27 and a D/H ratio of (3.5 ± 0.6) × 10−5, and these ratios are consistent with other published results from the literature. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Planetary Atmospheres: From Solar System to Exoplanets)
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46 pages, 6509 KiB  
Article
Exoplanets Catalogue Analysis: The Distribution of Exoplanets at FGK Stars by Mass and Orbital Period Accounting for the Observational Selection in the Radial Velocity Method
by Vladislava Ananyeva, Anastasiia Ivanova, Inna Shashkova, Oleg Yakovlev, Alexander Tavrov, Oleg Korablev and Jean-Loup Bertaux
Atmosphere 2023, 14(2), 353; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos14020353 - 10 Feb 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1465
Abstract
When studying the statistics of exoplanets, it is necessary to take into account the effects of observational selection and the inhomogeneity of the data in the exoplanets databases. When considering exoplanets discovered by the radial velocity technique (RV), we propose an algorithm to [...] Read more.
When studying the statistics of exoplanets, it is necessary to take into account the effects of observational selection and the inhomogeneity of the data in the exoplanets databases. When considering exoplanets discovered by the radial velocity technique (RV), we propose an algorithm to account for major inhomogeneities. We show that the de-biased mass distribution of the RV exoplanets approximately follows to a piecewise power law with the breaks at ~0.14 and ~1.7 MJ. FGK host stars planets group shows an additional break at 0.02 MJ. The distribution of RV planets follows the power laws of: dN/dm α m−3 (masses of 0.011–0.087 MJ), dN/dm α m−0.8…−1 (0.21–1.7 MJ), dN/dm ∝ m−1.7…−2 (0.087–0.21 MJ). There is a minimum of exoplanets in the range of 0.087–0.21 MJ. Overall, the corrected RV distribution of the planets over the minimum masses is in good agreement with the predictions of population fusion theory in the range (0.14–13 MJ) and the new population fusion theory in the range (0.02–0.14 MJ). The distributions of planets of small masses (0.011–0.14 MJ), medium masses (0.14–1.7 MJ), and large masses (1.7–13 MJ) versus orbital period indicate a preferential structure of planetary systems, in which the most massive planets are in wide orbits, as analogous to the Solar system. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Planetary Atmospheres: From Solar System to Exoplanets)
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11 pages, 1426 KiB  
Article
Twelve-Year Cycle in the Cloud Top Winds Derived from VMC/Venus Express and UVI/Akatsuki Imaging
by Igor V. Khatuntsev, Marina V. Patsaeva, Dmitrij V. Titov, Ludmila V. Zasova, Nikolay I. Ignatiev and Dmitry A. Gorinov
Atmosphere 2022, 13(12), 2023; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos13122023 - 01 Dec 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1605
Abstract
We present joint analysis of the UV (365 nm) images captured by the cameras on board ESA’s Venus Express and JAXA’s Akatsuki spacecraft. These observations enabled almost continuous characterization of the cloud top circulation over the longest period of time so far (2006–2021). [...] Read more.
We present joint analysis of the UV (365 nm) images captured by the cameras on board ESA’s Venus Express and JAXA’s Akatsuki spacecraft. These observations enabled almost continuous characterization of the cloud top circulation over the longest period of time so far (2006–2021). More than 46,000 wind vectors were derived from tracking the UV cloud features and revealed changes in the atmospheric circulation with the period of 12.5 ± 0.5 years. The zonal wind component is characterized by an annual mean of −98.6 ± 1.3 m/s and an amplitude of 10.0 ± 1.6 m/s. The mean meridional wind velocity is −2.3 ± 0.2 m/s and has an amplitude of 3.4 ± 0.3 m/s. Plausible physical explanations of the periodicity include both internal processes and external forcing. Both missions observed periodical changes in the UV albedo correlated with the circulation variability. This could result in acceleration or deceleration of the winds due to modulation of the deposition of the radiative energy in the clouds. The circulation can be also affected by the solar cycle that has a period of approximately 11 years with a large degree of deviation from the mean. The solar cycle correlated with the wind observations can probably influence both the radiative balance and chemistry of the mesosphere. The discovered periodicity in the cloud top circulation of Venus, and especially its similarity with the solar cycle, is strongly relevant to the study of exoplanets in systems with variable “suns”. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Planetary Atmospheres: From Solar System to Exoplanets)
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25 pages, 23056 KiB  
Article
The Effect of Model Resolution on the Vertical and Temporal Variation in the Simulated Martian Climate
by Yu-Wei Zhou, Kim-Chiu Chow and Jing Xiao
Atmosphere 2022, 13(10), 1736; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos13101736 - 21 Oct 2022
Viewed by 1357
Abstract
To study the impact of model horizontal resolution on the simulated climate of Mars, we increased the model resolution of the Mars general circulation model MarsWRF from the commonly used 5° × 5° (standard resolution, SR) to 3° × 3° (high resolution, HR). [...] Read more.
To study the impact of model horizontal resolution on the simulated climate of Mars, we increased the model resolution of the Mars general circulation model MarsWRF from the commonly used 5° × 5° (standard resolution, SR) to 3° × 3° (high resolution, HR). We applied an interactive dust scheme to parameterize the dust-lifting process and investigated the effect of model resolution from three aspects: (1) temporal variation; (2) horizontal distribution; and (3) vertical distribution. From the results of the simulations, we obtained the following conclusions: (1) The seasonal variation in some zonal-mean fields such as the column optical depth and T15 temperature could be reasonably simulated in both the SR and HR simulations, and the results were similar. (2) The effect of resolution on the horizontal distribution of the climate fields was significant at some regions with complicated terrain. (3) The HR simulation could be different from the SR simulation in the vertical dynamic field and thermal field. To obtain more accurate simulation results, it is recommended to use a higher resolution simulation when the vertical distribution is a major concern in the study. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Planetary Atmospheres: From Solar System to Exoplanets)
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21 pages, 5531 KiB  
Article
Venus’ Cloud-Tracked Winds Using Ground- and Space-Based Observations with TNG/NICS and VEx/VIRTIS
by Pedro Machado, Javier Peralta, José E. Silva, Francisco Brasil, Ruben Gonçalves and Miguel Silva
Atmosphere 2022, 13(2), 337; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos13020337 - 17 Feb 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 11824
Abstract
Characterizing the wind speeds of Venus and their variability at multiple vertical levels is essential for a better understanding of the atmospheric superrotation, constraining the role of large-scale planetary waves in the maintenance of this superrotation, and in studying how the wind field [...] Read more.
Characterizing the wind speeds of Venus and their variability at multiple vertical levels is essential for a better understanding of the atmospheric superrotation, constraining the role of large-scale planetary waves in the maintenance of this superrotation, and in studying how the wind field affects clouds’ distribution. Here, we present cloud-tracked wind results of the Venus nightside, obtained with unprecedented quality using ground-based observations during July 2012 with the near-infrared camera and spectrograph (NICS) of the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG) in La Palma. These observations were performed during 3 consecutive days for periods of 2.5 h starting just before dawn, sensing the nightside lower clouds of Venus close to 48 km of altitude with images taken at continuum K filter at 2.28 μm. Our observations cover a period of time when ESA’s Venus Express was not able to observe these deeper clouds of Venus due to a failure in the infrared channel of its imaging spectrometer, VIRTIS-M, and the dates were chosen to coordinate these ground-based observations with Venus Express’ observations of the dayside cloud tops (at about 70 km) with images at 380 nm acquired with the imaging spectrometer VIRTIS-M. Thanks to the quality and spatial resolution of TNG/NICS images and the use of an accurate technique of template matching to perform cloud tracking, we present the most detailed and complete profile of wind speeds ever performed using ground-based observations of Venus. The vertical shear of the wind was also obtained for the first time, obtained by the combination of ground-based and space-based observations, during the Venus Express mission since the year 2008, when the infrared channel of VIRTIS-M stopped working. Our observations exhibit day-to-day changes in the nightside lower clouds, the probable manifestation of the cloud discontinuity, no relevant variations in the zonal winds, and an accurate characterization of their decay towards the poles, along with the meridional circulation. Finally, we also present the latitudinal profiles of zonal winds, meridional winds, and vertical shear of the zonal wind between the upper clouds’ top and lower clouds, confirming previous findings by Venus Express. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Planetary Atmospheres: From Solar System to Exoplanets)
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