The Clouds of Venus: I. An Approximate Technique for Treating the Effects of Coagulation, Sedimentation and Turbulent Mixing on an Aerosol

Abstract

An approximate technique is presented for calculating the size distribution of an aerosol under Venus conditions using the first three moments of the distribution. The effects of coagulation, sedimentation and turbulent mixing are included. The approximate solution is compared to more accurate numerical solutions. The method is sufficiently accurate and fast to be useful in large-scale dynamic calculations of the Venus atmosphere. Using this method, we place upper limits on the dust number density in the Venus atmosphere from a meteoritic source.