Developing an Idealised Climate Model of Titan

<p>Our understanding of Saturn&#8217;s moon Titan has substantially increased during the past two decades. The successful Cassini-Huygens mission provided a wealth of measurements within the atmosphere itself. Despite our advances in understanding, much about Titan and its atmosphere are still unknown.&#160;<br>Aside from Earth, it is the only planet-like object in our Solar System to possess a hydrological cycle (using methane) and a thick atmosphere, but it also has significant differences from Earth in its dynamics and structure. As such, questions relating to the atmosphere's origin, long-term stability and stratospheric circulation remain unanswered.</p><p>The remoteness of Titan makes it difficult to study from Earth in much detail, with the next chance over a decade away in the form of the NASA Dragonfly mission. It does however provide an excellent opportunity to make use of computational methods to better understand the moon's unique atmosphere. We make use of an existing climate modelling framework (Isca) to develop an idealised model for Titan; this captures the key features of its atmosphere and circulation without introducing superfluous complexity. This model incorporates Titan's unique dynamics and moist physics, and hence can be used to test various aspects of the atmosphere in the absence of more complete observational data. We aim to test the stability of the atmosphere with respect to a methane-attributed runaway greenhouse effect using a full radiation code, varying insolation and hydrological budget</p>