TLALOC is a Horizon2020 MSCA
project developed by Audrey Chatain to investigate Titan's methane cycle with numerical modelling. The project is an international collaboration between UPV/EHU in Spain, SWRI in the USA and LMD in France and developed from September 2021 to December 2023.
Project description:
It rains methane on Saturn’s moon Titan. While this is due to the cryogenic temperatures, cloud localisations and precipitation events are still not well understood. To fill this knowledge gap, scientists are developing climate models, but they are currently missing crucial physical descriptions (especially air–surface interactions). In this context, the EU-funded TLALOC project has brought together experts from Europe and the United States to develop a next-generation global model of Titan to explore the influence of lakes and wetlands as well as seasonal effects and methane storm impacts. Upon completion, the project will deliver the first advanced model able to reproduce Titan’s hydrological cycle and interpret observations of clouds and rain events.
Project description in cordis.europa.eu: TLALOC
Video description of the project at: European Researchers' Night at UPV/EHU (2021)
Example of some of the simulations developed during the project:
Diurnal variation of the lake breeze created by a 50 km circular
methane lake at 74°N and fall equinox on Titan. Horizontal wind and vertical wind.
- Air-sea interactions on Titan: effect of radiative transfer on the lake evaporation and atmospheric circulation.
Audrey Chatain, Scot C.R. Rafkin, Alejandro Soto, Ricardo Hueso and Aymeric Spiga.
Planetary Science Journal, 3, id. 232, 26 pp. (2022);
doi:10.3847/psj/ac8d0b.
Accesibility: This is an open access article. A preprint is also available on ArXiv: arXiv:2210.03278.
This publication includes a related dataset published on Zenodo: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7023670.
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The impact of lake shape and size on lake breeze and air-lake exchanges on Titan.
Audrey Chatain, Scot. C.R. Rafkin, Alejandro Soto, Enora Moisan, Juan Lora, Alice Le Gall, Ricardo Hueso and Aymeric Spiga.
Icarus, 411, 115925 (2024); doi: 10.1016/j.icarus.2023.115925.
Accesibility: This is an open access article. A preprint is also available on ArXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/2309.07042.
This publication includes a related dataset published on Zenodo: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8172271.
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Moisan E., Chatain A., Rafkin S.C.R., Soto A., MacKenzie S. and Spiga A.
Ramparts around lakes on Titan impact winds and methane evaporation.
Submitted to the Planetary Science Journal.
This publication includes a related dataset published on Zenodo: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10475676.
- Chatain A., Moisan E., Bonnefoy L.E., Rafkin S.C.R., Soto A., Lora J., Lefèvre M., Spiga A. and Hueso R.
Influence of topography on the local atmospheric circulation and lake evaporation at high latitudes on Titan.
In preparation. To be submitted to the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, for a special collection “Aeolian-Fluvial Interactions across the Solar System”.
The related dataset will be published on Zenodo at the submission of the paper.
Acknowledgment:
TLALOC has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 101022760.
Last updated: 22 Feb. 2024