Hi Michael

There's quite a lot of literature, but nothing giving a general overview - yet.

I've got a set of course notes about the issue I need to read in depth.

Don, the cloud chemistry and advective processes are complex but simpler than Earth in some ways. Must be because of a lack of Coriolis forces and insignificant surface friction effects. Ralph Lorenz has some papers of relevance on atmospheres self-organising to run at the Carnot limit.

Adam

Venus Atmosphere Profile from a Maximum Entropy Principle

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0609649

Hi All

I haven't bothered with this for some time, but just the other day I sat down and re-did the integration - and found my silly mistake. I had set up the integral wrong at the very first. The equation now gives results in line with the numerical simulation.

Funny how problems can solve themselves after leaving them be for a while.

I would add, by the way, the excellent book by Marov and Grinspoon, which covers a lot of
the findings of the Russian probes in a rather accessible form.




A good compilation of solar system missions is Andrew Wilson's Solar System Log (Janes, 1987)
sadly out of print (and somewhat out of date).
A recent volume to which I made some contribution, which attempts a textbook treatment of
probes and landers (rather than orbiting/flyby spacecraft, which many texts already do well)
covering parachutes, landing dynamics etc. is Ball et al, 'Planetary Landers and Entry Probes'
Cambridge, 2007. Sadly, it isnt cheap

Hmm, interesting.

Without specifying the radiative deposition and emission profile, which the atmosphere
(at least, without the scary prospect of invoking clouds) cannot do much about, I
think this approach is not hugely different from saying the atmospheric temperature profile
with pressure or altitude is adiabatic (which for much of Venus, it is)

Rather more intriguing is the work by Ozawa ( Ozawa, H., and A. Ohmura,
Thermodynamics of a global-mean state of the atmosphere ––A state of maximum entropy increase, J. Clim., 10, 441–445, 1997)
which shows that given an opacity profile, the vertical structure of the (earth's) atmosphere
may adjust convectively to produce entropy at the maximum rate (so-called Maximum
Entropy Production principle, MaxEP).

Although the physical/thermodynamic foundations of the application of these ideas has
improved in recent years, it is still controversial (unloved by dynamicists) and really useful
applications have yet to be found...

"....Sadly, it isnt cheap..."
I'd say European scientific publishers are rapacious, but then I do have some idea of the horrendous overhead costs that pushes their prices up.

The all time bargains in quality-info-per-dollar are the University of Arizona Press conference books, like "Venus", "Protostars and Planets", .... etc. etc. etc.

I need to get the more recent ones.. I have all or most of the older ones up to the early 90's, including the prototype: "Planets, stars and asteroids observed with Photopolariimitry" <something like that>