Rotational temperatures of Venus upper atmosphere as measured by SOIR on board Venus Express

Abstract SOIR is a powerful infrared spectrometer flying on board the Venus Express spacecraft since mid-2006. It sounds the Venus atmosphere above the cloud layer using the solar occultation technique. In the recorded spectra, absorption structures from many species are observed, among them carbon dioxide, the main constituent of the Venus atmosphere. Previously, temperature vertical profiles were derived from the carbon dioxide density retrieved from the SOIR spectra by assuming hydrostatic equilibrium. These profiles show a permanent cold layer at 125 km with temperatures of ~100 K, surrounded by two warmer layers at 90 and 140 km, reaching temperatures of ~200 K and 250–300 K, respectively. In this work, temperature profiles are derived from the SOIR spectra using another technique based on the ro-vibrational structure of carbon dioxide observed in the spectra. The error budget is extensively investigated. Temperature profiles obtained by both techniques are comparable within their respective uncertainties and they confirm the vertical structure previously determined from SOIR spectra.