[P-PS04] Advancing the science of Venus in the golden age of exploration

[PPS04-P07] Long-term variations in a simulated Venus cloud driven by changes in microphysical properties of the aerosols.

*Kevin McGouldrick¹, Erika Lynn Barth² (1.University of Colorado Boulder, 2.Southwest Research Institute )

Keywords:Venus, Cloud Microphysics, Planetary Atmospheres, Planetary Clouds

With very little indisputed information about the characteristics (i.e., composition, size, vertical structure) of the aerosols in the Venus atmosphere, we turn to the influence of microphysical properties on the cloud structure as a means of constraining the identities of the venusian aerosols. The microphysics of cloud formation is a highly coupled process, and one in which differences in the physical properties of one constituent -- perhaps one that is not easily observed or measured -- can lead to observable changes in another constituent. Here, we present results that build upon recently-published work that demonstrates how changes in the coagulation efficiency of putative, photochemically-produced, involatile aerosols can bring about large scale changes in the total aerosol opacity in the clouds of Venus. Specifically, we show that a suppression of self-coagualtion of the involatile constituent in the Venus Upper Clouds can lead to total cloud opacity variations on the order of 10 optical depths over time scales on the order of 100 days.