Abstract Horizontal diffusion and resolution are important factors to generate and maintain the super-rotation in the general circulation model (GCM) because waves which transport angular momentum are sensitive to them. Here, we investigated how the super-rotation depends on the magnitude of horizontal hyper diffusion using a Venus atmospheric GCM with medium and high resolutions. In both the runs, we found a parameter range where the structure of fully developed super-rotation is almost independent of the magnitude of horizontal diffusion. Spectral analysis shows that unrealistically strong super-rotation is developed when medium-scale disturbances are dissipated by stronger horizontal diffusion. On the other hand, artificially weak super-rotation is also realized because spurious small-scale disturbances are accumulated when the horizontal diffusion is too weak. Graphical Abstract

Abstract The planetary missions including the Venus Climate Orbiter ‘Akatsuki’ provide new information on various atmospheric phenomena. Nevertheless, it is difficult to elucidate their three-dimensional structures globally and continuously only from observations because satellite observations are considerably limited in time and space. We constructed the first ‘objective analysis’ of Venus’ atmosphere by assimilating cloud-top horizontal winds on the dayside from the equator to mid-latitudes, which is frequently obtained from Akatsuki's Ultraviolet Imager (UVI). The three-dimensional structures of thermal tides, found recently to play a crucial role in maintaining the super rotation, are greatly improved by the data assimilation. This result is confirmed by comparison with Akatsuki's temperature observations. The momentum transport caused by the thermal tides and other disturbances are also modified by the wind assimilation and agrees well with those estimated from the UVI observations. The assimilated dataset is reliable and will be open to the public along with the Akatsuki observations for further investigation of Venus’ atmospheric phenomena.

Gravity waves play essential roles in the terrestrial atmosphere because they propagate far from source regions and transport momentum and energy globally. Gravity waves are also observed in the Venus atmosphere, but their characteristics have been poorly understood. Here we demonstrate activities of small-scale gravity waves using a high-resolution Venus general circulation model with less than 20 and 0.25 km in the horizontal and vertical grid intervals, respectively. We find spontaneous gravity wave radiation from nearly balanced flows. In the upper cloud layer (~70 km), the thermal tides in the super-rotation are primary sources of small-scale gravity waves in the low-latitudes. Baroclinic/barotropic waves are also essential sources in the mid- and high-latitudes. The small-scale gravity waves affect the three-dimensional structure of the super-rotation and contribute to material mixing through their breaking processes. They propagate vertically and transport momentum globally, which decelerates the super-rotation in the upper cloud layer (~70 km) and accelerates it above ~80 km.

The JAMSTEC Model Intercomparison Project (JMIP) provides a first opportunity to systematically compare multiple global models developed and/or used in JAMSTEC with the aim of moving toward better weather and climate predictions. Here, we evaluate climate simulations obtained from atmospheric models (AFES and MIROC5), atmospheric model with slab ocean (NICAM.12), and fully coup

Cloud patterns are important clues for revealing the atmospheric circulation of Venus. Recently, a planetary-scale streak structure has been discovered in middle- and lower-cloud images of Venus' night-side taken by IR2, the 2-mu m camera, on board the Akatsuki orbiter. However, its formation mechanism has not been investigated. Here we succeed, for the first time, in reproducing the patterns of the observed streak structure, as regions of strong downward flows that develop in high-resolution global simulations of the Venus atmosphere. The streaks are formed in both hemispheres with equatorial symmetry, which is caused by equatorial Rossby-like and Kelvin-like waves with zonal wavenumber one. The low-stability layer that has been suggested by past observations is essential for reproducing the streak structure. The streaks of downward flow result from the interaction of the meridionally tilted phase lines of the Rossby-like waves and the characteristics of baroclinic instability produced around the low-stability layer.

© 2018, The Author(s). The status and initial products of the 1-μm camera onboard the Akatsuki mission to Venus are presented. After the successful retrial of Venus’ orbit insertion on Dec. 2015 (5 years after the failure in Dec. 2010), and after a long cruise under intense radiation, damage in the detector seems small and fortunately insignificant in the final quality of the images. More than 600 dayside images have been obtained since the beginning of regular operation on Apr. 2016 although nightside images are less numerous (about 150 in total at three wavelengths) due to the light scattered from the bright dayside. However, data acquisition stopped after December 07, 2016, due to malfunction of the electronics and has not been resumed since then. The 0.90-µm dayside images are of sufficient quality for the cloud-tracking procedure to retrieve wind field in the cloud region. The results appear to be similar to those reported by previous 1-μm imaging by Galileo and Venus Express. The representative altitude sampled for such dayside images is estimated to be 51–55 km. Also, the quality of the nightside 1.01-µm images is sufficient for a search for active volcanism, since interference due to cloud inhomogeneity appears to be insignificant. The quality of the 0.97-µm images may be insufficient to achieve the expected spatial resolution for the near-surface H2O mixing ratio retrievals.[Figure not available: see fulltext.].

We examine extreme temperature and precipitation under two potential geoengineering methods forming part of the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP). The solar dimming experiment G1 is designed to completely offset the global mean radiative forcing due to a CO2-quadrupling experiment (abrupt4 x CO2), while in GeoMIP experiment G4, the radiative forcing due to t

The ultraviolet imager (UVI) has been developed for the Akatsuki spacecraft (Venus Climate Orbiter mission). The UVI takes ultraviolet (UV) images of the solar radiation reflected by the Venusian clouds with narrow bandpass filters centered at the 283 and 365 nm wavelengths. There are absorption bands of SO2 and unknown absorbers in these wavelength regions. The UV images provi

The existence of large stationary gravity waves was discovered during Akatsuki's first observation sequence in 2015. In this study, the further detection of large stationary gravity waves in brightness temperature images over a 1.5 year period is reported. The waves periodically appeared mostly above four specific highland regions in the low latitudes when these regions were in the local afternoon. The wave amplitudes attenuated after the wave locations passed beyond the evening terminator, and the locations of the waves tended to slowly drift eastward over their lifetimes. The appearances of stationary waves depend not only on surface topography but also on latitude and local time, suggesting that solar heating during the daytime and atmospheric structure affected by solar heating may control the excitation and propagation of stationary waves.

© 2017 The Author(s). The first year (December 2015 to November 2016) of IR2 after Akatsuki's successful insertion to an elongated elliptical orbit around Venus is reported with performance evaluation and results of data acquisition. The single-stage Stirling-cycle cryo-cooler of IR2 has been operated with various driving voltages to achieve the best possible cooling under the given thermal environment. A total of 3091 images of Venus (1420 dayside images at 2.02 μm and 1671 night-side images at 1.735, 2.26, and 2.32 μm) were acquired in this period. Additionally, 159 images, including images of stars for calibration and dark images for the evaluation of noise levels, were captured. Low-frequency flat images (not available in pre-launch calibration data) have been constructed using the images of Venus acquired from near the pericenter to establish the procedure to correct for the IR2 flat-field response. It was noticed that multiple reflections of infrared light in the PtSi detector caused a weak but extended tail of the point-spread function (PSF), contaminating the night-side disk of Venus with light from the much brighter dayside crescent. This necessitated the construction of an empirical PSF to remove this contamination and also to improve the dayside data by deconvolution, and this work is also discussed. Detailed astrometry is performed on star-field images in the H-band (1.65 μm), hereby confirming that the geometrical distortion of IR2 images is negligible.

We provide an overview of data products from observations by the Japanese Venus Climate Orbiter, Akatsuki, and describe the definition and content of each data-processing level. Levels 1 and 2 consist of non-calibrated and calibrated radiance (or brightness temperature), respectively, as well as geometry information (e.g., illumination angles). Level 3 data are global-grid data in the regular longitude-latitude coordinate system, produced from the contents of Level 2. Non-negligible errors in navigational data and instrumental alignment can result in serious errors in the geometry calculations. Such errors cause mismapping of the data and lead to inconsistencies between radiances and illumination angles, along with errors in cloud-motion vectors. Thus, we carefully correct the boresight pointing of each camera by fitting an ellipse to the observed Venusian limb to provide improved longitude-latitude maps for Level 3 products, if possible. The accuracy of the pointing correction is also estimated statistically by simulating observed limb distributions. The results show that our algorithm successfully corrects instrumental pointing and will enable a variety of studies on the Venusian atmosphere using Akatsuki data.

The first year (December 2015 to November 2016) of IR2 after Akatsuki's successful insertion to an elongated elliptical orbit around Venus is reported with performance evaluation and results of data acquisition. The single-stage Stirling-cycle cryo-cooler of IR2 has been operated with various driving voltages to achieve the best possible cooling under the given thermal environment. A total of 3091 images of Venus (1420 dayside images at 2.02 mu m and 1671 night-side images at 1.735, 2.26, and 2.32 mu m) were acquired in this period. Additionally, 159 images, including images of stars for calibration and dark images for the evaluation of noise levels, were captured. Low-frequency flat images (not available in pre-launch calibration data) have been constructed using the images of Venus acquired from near the pericenter to establish the procedure to correct for the IR2 flat-field response. It was noticed that multiple reflections of infrared light in the PtSi detector caused a weak but extended tail of the point-spread function (PSF), contaminating the night-side disk of Venus with light from the much brighter dayside crescent. This necessitated the construction of an empirical PSF to remove this contamination and also to improve the dayside data by deconvolution, and this work is also discussed. Detailed astrometry is performed on star-field images in the H-band (1.65 mu m), hereby confirming that the geometrical distortion of IR2 images is negligible.

After the arrival of Akatsuki spacecraft of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency at Venus in December 2015, the radio occultation experiment, termed RS (Radio Science), obtained 19 vertical profiles of the Venusian atmosphere by April 2017. An onboard ultra-stable oscillator is used to generate stable X-band downlink signals needed for the experiment. The quantities to be retrieved are the atmospheric pressure, the temperature, the sulfuric acid vapor mixing ratio, and the electron density. Temperature profiles were successfully obtained down to similar to 38 km altitude and show distinct atmospheric structures depending on the altitude. The overall structure is close to the previous observations, suggesting a remarkable stability of the thermal structure. Local time-dependent features are seen within and above the clouds, which is located around 48-70 km altitude. The H2SO4 vapor density roughly follows the saturation curve at cloud heights, suggesting equilibrium with cloud particles. The ionospheric electron density profiles are also successfully retrieved, showing distinct local time dependence. Akatsuki RS mainly probes the low and middle latitude regions thanks to the near-equatorial orbit in contrast to the previous radio occultation experiments using polar orbiters. Studies based on combined analyses of RS and optical imaging data are ongoing.

The Venus Climate Orbiter Akatsuki arrived at Venus in December 2015, and the Longwave Infrared Camera (LIR) onboard the spacecraft started making observations. LIR has acquired more than 8000 images during the first two Venusian years since orbit insertion without any serious faults. However, brightness temperature derived from LIR images contained an unexpected bias that related not to natural phenomena but to a thermal condition of the instrument. The bias could be partially eliminated by keeping the power supply unit for LIR always active, while the residual bias was simply correlated with the baffle temperature. Therefore, deep-space images were acquired at different baffle temperatures on orbit, and a reference table for eliminating the bias from images was prepared. In the corrected images, the brightness temperature was similar to 230 K at the center of the Venus disk, where the effect of limb darkening is negligible. The result is independent of the baffle temperature and consistent with the results of previous studies. Later, a laboratory experiment with the proto model of LIR showed that when the germanium (Ge) lens was heated, its actual temperature was slightly higher than the temperature measured by a thermal sensor attached to the lens holder. The experiment confirmed that transitory baffle heating accounted for the background bias found in the brightness temperature observed by LIR.

The Venusian atmosphere is in a state of superrotation where prevailing westward winds move much faster than the planet's rotation. Venus is covered with thick clouds that extend from about 45 to 70 km altitude, but thermal radiation emitted from the lower atmosphere and the surface on the planet's nightside escapes to space at narrow spectral windows of the near-infrared. The radiation can be used to estimate winds by tracking the silhouettes of clouds in the lower and middle cloud regions below about 57 km in altitude. Estimates of wind speeds have ranged from 50 to 70ms 1 at low to mid-latitudes, either nearly constant across latitudes or with winds peaking at mid-latitudes. Here we report the detection of winds at low latitude exceeding 80 m s(-1) using IR2 camera images from the Akatsuki orbiter taken during July and August 2016. The angular speed around the planetary rotation axis peaks near the equator, which we suggest is consistent with an equatorial jet, a feature that has not been observed previously in the Venusian atmosphere. The mechanism producing the jet remains unclear. Our observations reveal variability in the zonal flow in the lower and middle cloud region that may provide clues to the dynamics of Venus's atmospheric superrotation.

Vertical temperature profiles at 40-75km around 80 degrees N in the Venus polar vortex are retrieved over 13Earth days almost continuously from radio occultation measurements (Venus Express radio occultation) in the Venus Express mission. They show periodical variations with a dominant period of approximate to 3.1Earth days. These fluctuations are confined in an altitude range of 45-65km with a local minimum at approximate to 58km altitude, where the static stability abruptly increases with height. The phase of the temperature fluctuations is almost reversed at the 58km level and varies little above and below this altitude. A numerical simulation of a Venusian atmospheric general circulation model (GCM) shows that the axi-asymmetric temperature disturbance with zonal wave number 1 is predominant at 50-75km levels in the model atmosphere. The vertical structure of the reproduced disturbance agrees quite well with that retrieved by the radio occultation measurement: amplitude of the temperature fluctuation has a local minimum and its phase is reversed at the altitude (65km in the model) where the static stability rapidly changes as in the observations. Above and below this altitude, the phase is almost constant in the vertical direction. The relationship among the temperature, horizontal winds, and geopotential height associated with the simulated disturbance suggests that the axi-asymmetric temperature disturbance observed in the Venus polar region can be interpreted as neutral barotropic Rossby waves related to barotropic instability in the polar region. Plain Language Summary Vertical structure of the axi-asymmetric temperature disturbance, which has been observed by previous infrared measurements, is clarified by Venus Express radio occultation measurements. In addition, Venusian general circulation model (GCM) named "Atmospheric GCM for the Earth Simulator" for Venus could reproduce both horizontal and vertical structures of the disturbance, and its three-dimensional structure is also proposed for the first time. Moreover, we clarified that the disturbance is a barotropic and neutral Rossby wave related to barotropic instability in the polar region.

The size and mass of Venus is similar to those of the Earth; however, its atmospheric dynamics are considerably different and they are poorly understood due to limited observations and computational difficulties. Here, we developed a data assimilation system based on the local ensemble transform Kalman filter (LETKF) for a Venusian Atmospheric GCM for the Earth Simulator (VAFES), to make full use of the observational data. To examine the validity of the system, two datasets were assimilated separately into the VAFES forecasts forced with solar heating that excludes the diurnal component Qz; one was created from a VAFES run forced with solar heating that includes the diurnal component Qt, whereas the other was based on observations made by the Venus Monitoring Camera (VMC) onboard the Venus Express. The VAFES-LETKF system rapidly reduced the errors between the analysis and forecasts. In addition, the VAFES-LETKF system successfully reproduced the thermal tide excited by the diurnal component of solar heating, even though the second datasets only included horizontal winds at a single altitude on the dayside with a long interval of approximately one Earth day. This advanced system could be useful in the analysis of future datasets from the Venus Climate Orbiter 'Akatsuki'.

This study evaluates the forcing, rapid adjustment, and feedback of net shortwave radiation at the surface in the G4 experiment of the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project by analysing outputs from six participating models. G4 involves injection of 5Tgyr-1 of SO2, a sulfate aerosol precursor, into the lower stratosphere from year 2020 to 2069 against a background scenario of RCP4.5. A single-layer atmospheric model for shortwave radiative transfer is used to estimate the direct forcing of solar radiation management (SRM), and rapid adjustment and feedbacks from changes in the water vapour amount, cloud amount, and surface albedo (compared with RCP4.5). The analysis shows that the globally and temporally averaged SRM forcing ranges from-3.6 to-1.6Wm-2, depending on the model. The sum of the rapid adjustments and feedback effects due to changes in the water vapour and cloud amounts increase the downwelling shortwave radiation at the surface by approximately 0.4 to 1.5Wm-2 and hence weaken the effect of SRM by around 50%. The surface albedo changes decrease the net shortwave radiation at the surface it is locally strong (∼-4Wm-2) in snow and sea ice melting regions, but minor for the global average. The analyses show that the results of the G4 experiment, which simulates sulfate geoengineering, include large inter-model variability both in the direct SRM forcing and the shortwave rapid adjustment from change in the cloud amount, and imply a high uncertainty in modelled processes of sulfate aerosols and clouds.

AKATSUKI is the Japanese Venus Climate Orbiter that was designed to investigate the climate system of Venus. The orbiter was launched on May 21, 2010, and it reached Venus on December 7, 2010. Thrust was applied by the orbital maneuver engine in an attempt to put AKATSUKI into a westward equatorial orbit around Venus with a 30-h orbital period. However, this operation failed because of a malfunction in the propulsion system. After this failure, the spacecraft orbited the Sun for 5 years. On December 7, 2015, AKATSUKI once again approached Venus and the Venus orbit insertion was successful, whereby a westward equatorial orbit with apoapsis of similar to 440,000 km and orbital period of 14 days was initiated. Now that AKATSUKI's long journey to Venus has ended, it will provide scientific data on the Venusian climate system for two or more years. For the purpose of both decreasing the apoapsis altitude and avoiding a long eclipse during the orbit, a trim maneuver was performed at the first periapsis. The apoapsis altitude is now similar to 360,000 km with a periapsis altitude of 1000-8000 km, and the period is 10 days and 12 h. In this paper, we describe the details of the Venus orbit insertion-revenge 1 (VOI-R1) and the new orbit, the expected scientific information to be obtained at this orbit, and the Venus images captured by the onboard 1-mu m infrared camera, ultraviolet imager, and long-wave infrared camera 2 h after the successful initiation of the VOI-R1.

Unlike the polar vortices observed in the Earth, Mars and Titan atmospheres, the observed Venus polar vortex is warmer than the midlatitudes at cloud-top levels (similar to 65 km). This warm polar vortex is zonally surrounded by a cold latitude band located at similar to 60 degrees latitude, which is a unique feature called 'cold collar' in the Venus atmosphere. Although these structures have been observed in numerous previous observations, the formation mechanism is still unknown. Here we perform numerical simulations of the Venus atmospheric circulation using a general circulation model, and succeed in reproducing these puzzling features in close agreement with the observations. The cold collar and warm polar region are attributed to the residual mean meridional circulation enhanced by the thermal tide. The present results strongly suggest that the thermal tide is crucial for the structure of the Venus upper polar atmosphere at and above cloud levels.

Copyright © 2016 by the International Astronautical Federation (IAF). All rights reserved. Japan's Venus Climate Orbiter Akatsuki was proposed to ISAS (Institute of Space and Astronautical Science) in 2001 as an interplanetary mission. We made 5 cameras with narrow-band filters to image Venus at different wavelengths to track the cloud and minor components distribution at different heights to study the Venusian atmospheric dynamics in 3 dimension. It was launched on May 21st, 2010 and reached Venus on December 7th, 2010. With the thrust by the orbital maneuver engine, Akatsuki tried to go into the westward equatorial orbit around Venus with the 30 hours' orbital period, however it failed by the malfunction of the propulsion system. Later the spacecraft has been orbiting the sun for 5 years. On December 7th, 2015 Akatsuki met Venus again after the orbit control and Akatsuki was put into the westward equatorial orbit whose apoapsis is about 0.44 million km and orbital period of 14 days. Its main target is to shed light on the mechanism of the fast atmospheric circulation of Venus. The systematic imaging sequence by Akatsuki is advantageous for detecting meteorological phenomena with various temporal and spatial scales. We have five photometric sensors as mission instruments for imaging, which are 1 m-infrared camera (IR1), 2 m-infrared camera (IR2), ultra-violet imager (UVI), long-wave infrared camera (LIR), and lightning and airglow camera (LAC). These photometers except LIR have changeable filters in the optics to image in certain wavelengths. Akatsuki's long elliptical orbit around Venus is suitable for obtaining cloud-tracked wind vectors over a wide area continuously from high altitudes. With the observation, the characterizations of the meridional circulation, mid-latitude jets, and various wave activities are anticipated. The technical issues of Venus orbit insertion in 2015 and the scientific new results will be given in this paper.

This paper presents regime diagrams illustrating the parametric dependence of dynamical balance in a superrotating atmosphere produced in a quasi-axisymmetric idealized system with strong horizontal diffusion studied previously by the present authors. In this system, the superrotation is maintained by the Gierasch mechanism, which possibly explains the four-day circulation in the atmosphere of Venus. Our previous paper developed a theoretical model of this system to estimate the superrotation strength and showed that the parametric dependence of the superrotation strength can be consolidated into three non-dimensional external parameters. The present study analyzes the theoretical model to determine boundaries of the regimes based on the dynamical balance and plots theoretical regime diagrams, which are important to understand the non-linear dynamical system and are useful to clearly describe the parametric dependence. Further, a parametric limit of the theoretical model is also estimated and included in the diagrams. The parametric limit shows both a lower limit for the horizontal diffusion and an upper limit of the superrotation strength in the Gierasch mechanism. The regime diagram demonstrates that the superrotation in the cyclostrophic balance is realized when the horizontal Ekman number is in a certain range whose width is mainly controlled by the vertical Ekman number. Numerical solutions covering a vast region in the parameter space are obtained by time-integrations of the primitive equations, and the dynamical regimes in the numerical solutions are compared with the theoretical regime diagrams. The theoretical regime diagrams agree well with the numerical results in most regions, confirming the validity of the theoretical model. Multiple equilibrium solutions are obtained when the horizontal Ekman number is lower than the theoretical limit. Moreover, they show that the Gierasch mechanism can maintain the superrotation even with the horizontal diffusion weaker than the predicted lower limit, but cannot generate superrotation from a motionless state.

Japanese Venus Climate Orbiter/AKATSUKI was proposed in 2001 with strong support by international Venus science community and approved as an ISAS (The Institute of Space and Astronautical Science) mission soon after the proposal. The mission life we expected was more than two Earth years in Venus orbit. AKATSUKI was successfully launched at 06:58:22JST on May 21, 2010, by H-IIA F17. After the separation from H-IIA, the telemetry from AKATSUKI was normally detected by DSN Goldstone station (10:00JST) and the solar cell paddles' deployment was confirmed. After a successful cruise, the malfunction happened on the propulsion system during the Venus orbit insertion (VOI) on Dec. 7, 2010. The engine shut down before the planned reduction in speed to achieve. The spacecraft did not enter the Venus orbit but entered an orbit around the Sun with a period of 203 days. Most of the fuel still had remained, but the orbital maneuvering engine was found to be broken and unusable. However, we have found an alternate way of achieving orbit by using only the reaction control system (RSC). We had adopted the alternate way for orbital maneuver and three minor maneuvers in Nov. 2011 were successfully done so that AKATSUKI would meet Venus in 2015. We are considering several scenarios for VOI using only RCS. © 2013 IAA.

This paper presents a theoretical estimation of the strength of equatorial superrotation in planetary atmospheres by exploring a quasi-axisymmetric system that is zonally averaged primitive equations for a dry Boussinesq fluid on a rotating hemisphere with the effects of nonaxisymmetric eddies parameterized by eddy diffusion. The fluid is forced by Newtonian heating and cooling, and the horizontal eddy diffusion of momentum is assumed to be much stronger than the vertical one. In this system, the superrotation is maintained by the Gierasch mechanism, which possibly explains the superrotation of the Venus atmosphere by angular momentum transport due to the mean meridional circulation and horizontal diffusion. For the estimation, a quintic equation for a scalar measure of the superrotation strength is developed from the primitive equations. The quintic equation estimates the superrotation strength by its unique positive solution, which depends only on three nondimensional parameters: the external thermal Rossby number, the ratio of the radiative relaxation time to the timescale for the vertical diffusion, and the ratio of the planetary rotation period to the geometric mean of the timescales for the horizontal and vertical diffusion. The parameter dependence of the dominant dynamical balance is also investigated. The balance is a cyclostrophic, geostrophic, or horizontal diffusion balance, and in each balance, the equator-to-pole temperature difference is either nearly equal to that in the radiative-convective equilibrium state or significantly reduced by thermal advection. Steady-state or statistically steady-state solutions of the primitive equations are obtained by numerical time-integrations for a wide parameter range covering many orders of magnitude. The numerical solutions show that the theoretical estimates have a relative error of less than 50%, which is very small compared with the superrotation strength varying five orders depending on the external parameters, and show that the estimation is valid.

A non-negative filter is developed to avoid negative values that may be produced in the interpolation of a non-conservative semi-Lagrangian advection scheme of tracers. Non-negativity is realized by a variable transformation with a function using arcsine. One-dimensional advection tests show that the proposed filter eliminates negative values of the mixing ratio and reduces error, whereas other non-negative filters (e. g., the global hole filling method) increase error. The variable transformation with the arcsine function efficaciously reduces the error in the region where the mixing ratio is zero, with a small counter effect to non-zero values. The proposed filter is very simple, so that it can be used in multi-dimensional schemes without modification and can be combined with other filters, such as a mass fixer and a monotonic filter.

Japanese Venus Climate Orbiter, Akatsuki, is cruising to approach to Venus again although its first Venus orbital insertion (VOI) has been failed. At present, we focus on the next opportunity of VOI and the following scientific observations. We have constructed an automated cloud tracking system for processing data obtained by Akatsuki in the present study. In this system, correction of the pointing of the satellite is essentially important for improving accuracy of the cloud motion vectors derived using the cloud tracking. Attitude errors of the satellite are reduced by fitting an ellipse to limb of an imaged Venus disk. Next, longitude-latitude distributions of brightness (cloud patterns) are calculated to make it easy to derive the cloud motion vectors. The grid points are distributed at regular intervals in the longitude-latitude coordinate. After applying the solar zenith correction and a highpass filter to the derived longitude-latitude distributions of brightness, the cloud features are tracked using pairs of images. As a result, we obtain cloud motion vectors on longitude-latitude grid points equally spaced. These entire processes are pipelined and automated, and are applied to all data obtained by combinations of cameras and filters onboard Akatsuki. It is shown by several tests that the cloud motion vectors are determined with a sufficient accuracy. We expect that longitude-latitude data sets created by the automated cloud tracking system will contribute to the Venus meteorology. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Japanese Venus Climate Orbiter/AKATSUKI was proposed in 2001 with strong support by international Venus science community and approved as an ISAS (Institute of Space and Astronautical Science) mission soon after the proposal. The mission life we expected was more than two Earth years in Venus orbit. AKATSUKI was successfully launched at 06:58:22JST on May 21, 2010, by H-IIA F17. After the separation from H-IIA, the telemetry from AKATSUKI was normally detected by DSN Goldstone station (10:00JST) and the solar cell paddles' expansion was confirmed. The malfunction happened on the propulsion system during the Venus orbit insertion (VOI) on Dec 7, 2010. We failed to make the spacecraft become a Venus orbiter, and the spacecraft entered an orbit around the Sun with a period of 203 days. Most of the fuel still had remained, but the orbital maneuvering engine was found to be broken. We decided to use only the reaction control system (RCS) for orbital maneuver and three minor maneuvers in Nov 2011 were successfully done so that AKATSUKI will meet Venus in 2015. We are considering several scenarios for VOI using only RCS. Copyright © (2012) by the International Astronautical Federation.

We investigate the early-time coalescence of two co-flowing axisymmetric turbulent plumes and the later-time flow of the induced vortices in a rotating, homogeneous fluid using laboratory experiments. The experiments demonstrate the critical importance of the rotation period T(f) = 2 pi/f, where f is the Coriolis parameter of the background rotation. We find that if the plumes' sources are sufficiently "close" for the plumes to merge initially at an "early time" t(m) less than or similar to t(r) = 3T(f)/4, the experimentally observed merging height z(me) agrees well with the non-rotating theoretical relationship of z(mt) approximate to (0.44/alpha)x(0) < z(r) = 5.5F(0)(1/4)f(-3/4), where alpha is the entrainment "constant" of the turbulent plumes, x(0) is the separation distance between the two plume sources, F(0) is the source buoyancy flux of each plume, and z(r) is the distance that the plume rises in the time t(r) before rotational effects become significant. Therefore, rotation does not affect the initial time to merger or the initial merger height of such "close" plumes. For "late" times t > t(r), however, the flow dynamics are substantially more complicated, as the flow becomes significantly affected by rotation. The propagation and entrainment of the plumes becomes strongly affected by the vortices induced by the entrainment flow in a rotating environment. Also, the plume fluid itself starts to interact with these vortices. If the plumes have already initially merged by the time t = t(r), a single vortex (initially located at the midpoint of the line connecting the two plume sources) develops, which both advects and modifies the geometry of the merging plumes. Coupled with the various suppressing effects of rotation on the radial plume entrainment, the "apparent" observed height of merger can vary substantially from its initial value. Conversely, for more widely separated "distant" plumes, where x(0) > x(c) = (25 alpha/2)F(0)(1/4)f(-3/4), the plumes do not merge before the critical time t(r) when rotation becomes significant in the flow dynamics and two vortices are observed, each located over a plume source. The combined effect of these vortices with the associated suppression of entrainment by rotation thus significantly further delays the merger of the two plumes, which apparently becomes possible only through the merger of the induced vortices. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3584134]

© 2018, The Author(s). The existence of lightning discharges in the Venus atmosphere has been controversial for more than 30 years, with many positive and negative reports published. The lightning and airglow camera (LAC) onboard the Venus orbiter, Akatsuki, was designed to observe the light curve of possible flashes at a sufficiently high sampling rate to discriminate lightning from other sources and can thereby perform a more definitive search for optical emissions. Akatsuki arrived at Venus during December 2016, 5 years following its launch. The initial operations of LAC through November 2016 have included a progressive increase in the high voltage applied to the avalanche photodiode detector. LAC began lightning survey observations in December 2016. It was confirmed that the operational high voltage was achieved and that the triggering system functions correctly. LAC lightning search observations are planned to continue for several years.

金星大気の全球的な流れを計算する数値モデル「AFES-Venus」とそれを用いた数値実験・データ同化について紹介する．AFES-Venusは，金星大気の惑星規模筋状構造や周極低温域，大気安定度の地方時依存性などの再現に成功している．AFES-Venusでは，高度55 km付近に低安定度層を導入したことと，空間解像度を高めたことによって，傾圧不安定の発達が計算されるようになった．数値実験により，傾圧不安定の発達が，金星大気の現実的な風速・温度場の再現にとって重要であることが分かってきた．また我々は，AFES-Venusを用いたデータ同化システムも開発しており，「あかつき」による観測を反映した現実的かつ時空間的に偏りのない金星大気のデータセットの創出や，個々の観測の重要度評価による観測計画立案への貢献も目指している．

Overview and preliminary results of a coordinated rocket and ground-based measurement campaign, Waves in Airglow Structures Experiment 2004 (WAVE2004), are presented. The aim of the campaign is to understand the formation process of wavy structures in the airglow from both dynamical and chemical aspects. Na lidar was used to monitor the vertical structure of atmospheric waves continuously. Ground-based measurements operated from several days before the launch could detect various waves. The atomic oxygen density distribution found showed a single peak structure as usually expected instead of a double peak structure in the previous campaign. (c) 2005 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.