Simulating Pluto's Atmosphere with a Unified Multiple Modeling Framework

Anthony D Toigo, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD, United States, Richard G French, Wellesley College, Department of Astronomy, Wellesley, MA, United States, Peter J Gierasch, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, United States and Scott Guzewich, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, United States
Abstract:
We describe a unified modeling framework for simulating Pluto's atmospheric dynamics and surface interactions. The framework is based around the PlutoWRF general circulation model (GCM). The GCM can also be pared back to simpler implementations that share the same infrastructure. Two reduced versions of PlutoWRF are a 2D surface volatile exchange model and a 1D radiative-convective model. These implementations help specify physically self-consistent initial conditions for more computationally intensive 3D GCM runs, and provide insight into the results of those simulations. The 2D surface volatile exchange model provides predictions of surface conditions (surface pressure, ground temperature, ice coverage, etc.) with easy variation of input parameters (thermal inertia, ice albedo, volatile inventory, etc.) and the 1D radiative-convective model provides predictions of global-average air temperature with easy variation of input parameters (atmospheric composition, etc.) We compare our 2D surface volatile exchange model with others’ work, and highlight the important role that ice sublimation and deposition play in the atmospheric dynamics.
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