Instructor: Professor David Catling
Phone: 543-4576
General Description:
Problems of origin, evolution, and structure of planetary atmospheres,
emphasizing elements common to all; roles of radiation, chemistry, and dynamical
processes; recent research on the atmospheres of Venus, Mars,
Jupiter, and other planets in the context of comparative planetology.
Time/ Place: First meeting on Wed January 8, 2003 in Rm. 408 ATG
Building, 1.30-2.50pm Subsequent meetings will be scheduled at times to
avoid conflicts for registered students.
Textbooks:
There is no ideal textbook for this course. We will follow relevant chapters
in the book by De Pater and Lissauer.
This book covers the whole of planetary science and the coverage on atmospheres
can be somewhat terse. Thus we will also refer to other books listed below,
when necessary.
1) I. de Pater and J. Lissauer, Planetary Sciences, Cambridge
University Press, 2001.
Chapters 1, 3 & 4 cover introductory material, energy transport and
planetary atmospheres, respectively.
2) J. S. Lewis, Physics and Chemistry of the Solar System, Revised
Edition , Academic Press, 1997.
This book covers the whole Solar System and its coverage of atmopheres
is biased towards a geochemical viewpoint.
An older book is: J. S. Lewis and R. G. Prinn, Planets and their
Atmospheres: Origin and Evolution, Academic Press, 1984. This also
takes a geochemical viewpoint of planetary atmospheres.
3) J. W. Chamberlain and D. M. Hunten, Theory of Planetary Atmospheres,
2nd Ed., Academic, 1987.
Although the title sounds broad, this book focuses on upper atmospheres
and aeronomy, where it has very good coverage.
4) Y. L. Yung and W. B. DeMore, Photochemistry of Planetary Atmospheres,
Oxford University Press, 1999.
Planetary atmospheres with a focus on the photochemistry.
5) J. C. G. Walker, Evolution of the Atmosphere, Macmillan,
1977. This old book is extremely well-written and lucid, but is now very
out-of-date.
6) J.K. Beatty and A. Chaikin, eds., The New Solar System, 4th
Edition, 1998.
This book gives a non-mathematical, but accurate, coverage of the Solar
System. It is good introductory reading.
SYLLABUS (also downloadable here).
1. Atmospheric Structure on the Planets: The static
structure (Wks 1-4)
1.1 Hydrostatic equilibrium. Stability and convection.
Lapse rates on the planets. Water vapor in planetary atmospheres (Earth, Venus;
Mars as a case study). Methane on Titan.
1.2 Energy Sources on Planets. Thermal balance. Greenhouse
effect. Runaway greenhouse effect (early Venus, future Earth?). Radiative
time constant on planets.
1.3 Radiative transfer. Solar/ UV (Mars as case study).
Infrared. Radiative-convective equilibrium.
1.4 Photochemistry on Earth, Mars, Venus.
1.5 The upper atmosphere: Mesosphere, thermosphere, homopause,
exosphere.
1.6 Escape processes: Jean's escape, hydrodynamic escape,
impact erosion, sputtering.
2. Atmospheric Evolution (Wks 4-8)
2.1 The solar nebula. Planetary formation processes and
chemical equilibrium/mixing in the nebula.
2.2 Early steam atmospheres. Ocean-vaporizing impacts
on Earth.
2.3 Noble gases and isotopes as indicators of atmospheric
evolution. More atmospheric escape.
2.4 Evolution of Earth's atmosphere and climate over geologic
history.
2.5 Evolution of Mars' atmosphere and climate
2.6 Evolution of Venus's atmosphere and climate
2.7 Evolution of Titan's atmosphere
2.8 Atmospheric spectroscopy of extrasolar planets
3. Planetary Atmospheric Circulations: The moving structure
(Wks 8-10)
3.1 Fluid mechanics basics. Geostrophic balance on Earth
& Mars. Cyclostrophic balance. Rossby number.
3.2 Large-scale vertical motion. Richardson number.
3.3 Vorticity, potential vorticity. Atmospheric waves.
Thermal tides.
3.4 Mars: observed circulation
3.5 Venus: observed circulation; superrotation
3.6 Titan: observed circulation
3.7 Triton and Pluto atmospheres. Thin atmospheres, e.g.,
Io.
3.8 Jupiter & extrasolar planet gas giants.