Long-Lived Storms and Squall Lines on Titan

Abstract:

The impact of CAPE and wind shear on storms in a Titan-like environment are explored through numerical simulation. Numerical modeling indicates that both large-scale shear and CAPE environment control the dynamics of the clouds. This response to the large-scale environment is analogous to the behavior of deep convective clouds on Earth. The balance between shear and CAPE, as expressed through the bulk Richardson Number (N_R), is a good indicator of the response of a storm to its environment. Large N_R results in short-lived single cell storms (Figure 1a). As shear increases for a given CAPE, and N_R decreases, the storms transition to a multicellular regime. Multicellular storms are longer-lived and are characterized by a downdraft generated cold pool that interacts with the background shear vorticity to initiate cells along the leading edge of the storm gust front (Figure 1b). The most intense multicellular systems simulated in this study behave similar to terrestrial squall lines, and very long-lived storms (>24 hours) propagating for 1000 km or more might be possible. Cloud outbursts and linear cloud features observed from ground and Cassini may be the result of these organized storm systems. Varying amounts of shear in the Titan environment might explain the variety of convective cloud expressions identified in Cassini orbiter and ground-based observations. The resulting distribution and magnitude of precipitation as well as surface winds associated with storms have implications on the formation of fluvial and aeolian features, including dunes, and on the exchange of methane with the surface and lakes.