Gravity waves and convection cells resulting from feedback heating of Venus' lower clouds

Abstract

A radiative-dynamical cloud feedback heating (CFH) is incorporated into a two-dimensional mechanistic model in an equatorial longitude-height plane of Venus. For a typical basic field, the CFH triggered by random disturbance results in the formation of convection cells with various scales in the low-stability layer (∼ 55 km) sandwiched between stable layers, and the convection cells generate vertically propagating gravity waves. The wave-generation mechanism by convection cells resulting from CFH is different from previous mechanisms, in which waves were directly forced by CFH. If the cloud feedback process works in real atmosphere, the convection resulting from the perturbed CFH should be considered as a possible formation mechanism of gravity waves in Venus' cloud layer.