气候变化领域集成服务门户(CCPortal): The Insulating Effect of Methane Clathrate Crust on Titan's Thermal Evolution

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DOI	10.1029/2020GL087481
	The Insulating Effect of Methane Clathrate Crust on Titan's Thermal Evolution
	Kalousová K.; Sotin C.
发表日期	2020
ISSN	0094-8276
卷号	47 期号:13
英文摘要	Saturn's largest moon Titan is unique for its dense, methane-rich atmosphere, with ongoing complex organics chemistry, and the hydrocarbon lakes and seas on its frigid surface. Titan also harbors a subsurface water ocean, and its ice shell is likely capped by a thick crust of low-conductivity methane clathrates that are very stable under Titan's surface conditions. Here, we investigate the effect of this insulating clathrate crust on convection in the ice shell. Without the clathrate crust, convection occurs below a stagnant lid that is a few tens of kilometers thick and limits the exchange between the surface and the deep ocean. We show that a 5–10 km thick clathrate crust reduces the stagnant lid thickness about threefold thus increasing the potential for the ocean-surface exchange. Moreover, the insulating effect of clathrates dramatically decreases the amount of extracted heat thus limiting the freezing rate of Titan's ocean. © 2020. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.
英文关键词	Atmospheric chemistry; Insulation; Oceanography; Complex organics; Hydrocarbon lakes; Low conductivity; Methane clathrates; Ocean surfaces; Subsurface waters; Surface conditions; Thermal evolution; Methane; clathrate; crustal structure; freezing; hydrocarbon reserve; methane; Saturn; thermal alteration; Titan
语种	英语
来源期刊	Geophysical Research Letters
文献类型	期刊论文
条目标识符	http://gcip.llas.ac.cn/handle/2XKMVOVA/170148
作者单位	Department of Geophysics, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic; Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, United States
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Kalousová K.,Sotin C.. The Insulating Effect of Methane Clathrate Crust on Titan's Thermal Evolution[J],2020,47(13).
APA	Kalousová K.,&Sotin C..(2020).The Insulating Effect of Methane Clathrate Crust on Titan's Thermal Evolution.Geophysical Research Letters,47(13).
MLA	Kalousová K.,et al."The Insulating Effect of Methane Clathrate Crust on Titan's Thermal Evolution".Geophysical Research Letters 47.13(2020).