Six years of Venus winds at the upper cloud level from UV, visible and near infrared observations from VIRTIS on Venus Express

Abstract The Venus Express mission has provided a long-term monitoring of Venus atmosphere including the morphology and motions of its upper clouds. Several works have focused on the dynamics of the upper cloud visible on the day-side in ultraviolet images sensitive to the 65-70 km altitude and in the lower cloud level (50 km height) observable in the night-side of the planet in the 1.74 μm spectral window. Here we use VIRTIS-M spectral images in nearby wavelengths to study the upper cloud layer in three channels: ultraviolet (360-400 nm), visible (570-680 nm) and near infrared (900-955 nm) extending in time the previous analysis of VIRTIS-M data. The ultraviolet images show relatively well contrasted cloud features at the cloud top. Cloud features in the visible and near infrared images lie a few kilometers below the upper cloud top, have very low contrast and are distinct to the features observed in the ultraviolet. Wind measurements were obtained on 118 orbits covering the Southern hemisphere over a six-year period and using a semi-automatic cloud correlation algorithm. Results for the upper cloud from VIRTIS-M ultraviolet data confirm previous analysis based on images obtained by the Venus Monitoring Camera (Khatuntsev et al. (2013)). At the cloud top the mean zonal and meridional winds vary with local time accelerating towards the local afternoon. The upper branch of the Hadley cell circulation reaches maximum velocities at 45 latitude and local times of 14-16 h. The mean zonal winds in the ultraviolet cloud layer accelerated in the course of the 2006-2012 period at least 15 m s-1. The near infrared and visible images show a more constant circulation without significant time variability or longitudinal variations. The meridional circulation is absent or slightly reversed in near infrared and visible images indicating that, either the Hadley-cell circulation in Venus atmosphere is shallow, or the returning branch of the meridional circulation extends to levels below the cloud level sensed in near infrared images. At subpolar to polar latitudes the three wavelength ranges show similar features and motions which is a signature of small vertical wind shear and may be affected by vertical convergence of both layers. At the clod top level observed in UV images there are signatures of a long-term acceleration of the zonal winds at afternoon hours when comparing zonal winds from the first years of Venus Express observations (2006-2008) to later dates (2009-2012) with a mean acceleration of zonal winds of 17±6 m s-1 between both time periods. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.