Download the full version of the ebook at

https://ebookultra.com

Planetary Atmospheres 1st Edition F.W. Taylor

https://ebookultra.com/download/planetary-
atmospheres-1st-edition-f-w-taylor/

Explore and download more ebook at https://ebookultra.com

 Recommended digital products (PDF, EPUB, MOBI) that
you can download immediately if you are interested.

Planetary crusts their composition origin and evolution

1st Edition S. Ross Taylor

https://ebookultra.com/download/planetary-crusts-their-composition-
origin-and-evolution-1st-edition-s-ross-taylor/

ebookultra.com

Dark Green Religion Nature Spirituality and the Planetary

Future 1st Edition Bron Taylor

https://ebookultra.com/download/dark-green-religion-nature-
spirituality-and-the-planetary-future-1st-edition-bron-taylor/

ebookultra.com

Interaction of Polymers with Polluted Atmospheres 1st

Edition Zaikov

https://ebookultra.com/download/interaction-of-polymers-with-polluted-
atmospheres-1st-edition-zaikov/

ebookultra.com

Atmospheres and Shared Emotions 1st Edition Dylan Trigg

(Editor)

https://ebookultra.com/download/atmospheres-and-shared-emotions-1st-
edition-dylan-trigg-editor/

ebookultra.com
Planetary Climates Andrew Ingersoll

https://ebookultra.com/download/planetary-climates-andrew-ingersoll/

ebookultra.com

Planetary Ring Systems 1st Edition Dr. Ellis D. Miner

https://ebookultra.com/download/planetary-ring-systems-1st-edition-dr-
ellis-d-miner/

ebookultra.com

Planetary modernism provocations on modernity across time

Friedman

https://ebookultra.com/download/planetary-modernism-provocations-on-
modernity-across-time-friedman/

ebookultra.com

Planetary Systems and the Origins of Life 1st Edition

Ralph Pudritz

https://ebookultra.com/download/planetary-systems-and-the-origins-of-
life-1st-edition-ralph-pudritz/

ebookultra.com

Blind Justice 1st Edition Taylor

https://ebookultra.com/download/blind-justice-1st-edition-taylor/

ebookultra.com
Planetary Atmospheres 1st Edition F.W. Taylor Digital
Instant Download
Author(s): F.W. Taylor
ISBN(s): 9780199547418, 0199547416
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 7.33 MB
Year: 2010
Language: english
Planetary
Atmospheres

F. W. Taylor
Planetary
Atmosp11eres

F.W. Taylor
Department of Physics
University of Oxford, UK
Original artwork by D.J. Taylor

OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford oxz 6DP
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide in
Oxford New York
�
Auckland Cape Town Dar·es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi
Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi
New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto
With offices in
Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece
Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore
South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam
Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press
in the UK and in certain other countries
Published in the United States
by Oxford University Press Inc., New York
© F.W. Taylor 20 1 0
The moral rights o f the authors have been asserted
D atabase right Oxford University Press (maker)
First published 201 0
All rights reserved. N o part o f this publication may b e reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press,
or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate
reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction
outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department,
Oxford University Press, at the address above
You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover
and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Data available
Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India
Printed in Great Britain
on acid-free paper by
CPI Antony Rowe

ISBN 978-0-19-954742-5 (Hbk)

ISBN 978-0-19-954741-8 (Pbk)

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Preface

The final year of the Physics undergraduate degree (M.Phys.) course at

Oxford University involves specialisation in two areas of Physics,
which the student chooses from a list of eleven options. One of these
options, called The Physics of Atmospheres and Oceans, is further
subdivided into short courses on basic Atmospheric Physics and
Oceanography, Theory and Practice of Remote Sounding, Weather
Forecasting, Climate Change and Chaos, and Comparative Planet­
ology. All of the students, whether they choose this option or not,
took, in the previous year, the course called Climate Physics which
provides a basis for the more advanced material in the Atmospheres
and Oceans option. A textbook for the Climate Physics course, Elem­
entary Climate Physics, was published in 2005.
This book is the text for the Comparative Planetology segment ofthe
final year course. The title Planetary Atmospheres has been chosen to
avoid the confusion that might result when 'comparative planetology'
is no longer obviously meant to be in the context of a course about
atmospheres and oceans. The coverage is also extended somewhat
beyond the boundaries of the Oxford course in order to make it
more useful to students elsewhere. The emphasis remains on compara­
tive aspects of planetary atmospheres, generally meaning comparison
with the Earth, including atmospheric composition, thermal structure,
cloud properties, dynamics, weather and climate, and aeronomy. The
goal is to look for common processes at work under different bound­
ary conditions in order to reach a fundamental understanding of the
physics of atmospheres.
It is appropriate for a short module that forms part of a general
Physics course that it should choose to emphasise certain aspects that
are of broad topical interest. Here, those are (i) evolutionary processes,
setting the Earth in its context as a planet and a member of the Solar
System; (ii) the properties of atmospheres that affect the climate near
the surface of each planet; and (iii) measurement techniques and
models, where the same experimental and theoretical physics is applied
under different conditions to investigate and explain atmospheric be­
haviour. These might be thought of as the astronomical, environmen­
tal, and technical sides of the discipline, respectively.
The syllabus for the Oxford course is summarised in the student
handbook as:
• Origins ofplanetary atmospheres and evolution;
• Composition and photochemistry;
• Radiative properties and energy balance;
Preface

• Clouds, dust, and aerosol;

• Atmospheres in radiative equilibrium;
• Climate and climate change; and
• Observation ofplanetary atmospheres.

The recommended textbooks used before the present book existed are
listed below; it had been a problem that a minimum of five books were
needed to support one short course, and that some of those are
somewhat out of date, requiring further subsidiary references to
cover the course adequately. This book was produced to cover the
basics in a single manuscript. Of course, some secondary reading is also
appropriate, and the other recommended books are still relevant. In
addition, specific references to important sources or seminal papers are
given at the ends of the chapters, along with key definitions and some
historical background in footnotes and in the Glossary at the end of
the book.
The approach is the same as in Elementary Climate Physics: an
overview, followed by more detailed discussion of key topics, arranged
by physical phenomenon and not planet by planet as usually found in
this field. There is an emphasis on acquiring and interpreting measure­
ments, including the basic physics of instruments and models. The
resulting knowledge about atmospheres is set in the context of simple
models that can be manipulated with no more computing power than
is available with a simple spreadsheet and which do not obscure the
basic physics. A clear, basic discussion sometimes requires a difficult
balance between repetition and cross-referencing. Where terms are
introduced in the text they appear in italics and are defined and
explained in the glossary at the end of the book. Values for important
parameters and useful constants are also collected in an appendix. A
handy set of simplified reference model atmospheres is also provided,
as are some sample questions, mostly from past examinations and
tutorials, for which the answers are to be found in the text.
Additional topics that fall outside the Oxford syllabus are covered
whenever that gives a more well-rounded treatment of the subject for
the benefit of readers who are not at Oxford and not taking this
particular course. In this way, it is horred that this book will be
found to be useful for a wide range of students everywhere, or anyone
interested in the fundamental science of planetary atmospheres.
Acknovvledgements

Thanks are extended to the many colleagues past and present whose
work in one way or another contributed to the material presented here.
Particular acknowledgement and gratitude is due to Dr D.J. Taylor
who drew all of the original diagrams and created the cover image. Ms
Jo Barstow, Dr Colin Wilson and Professor Peter Read scrutinised
some or all of the manuscript and made very useful suggestions and
corrections.
Parts of the chapter on atmospheric dynamics are based on unpub­
lished lecture notes produced by the present author with P.L. Read, R.
Hide, and P.J. Gierasch in the 1 980s for a graduate course on the
subject, and on some current lectures given by Professor Read. Sec­
tions 9 . 5 and 9 . 8 on the climates of Mars and Titan, respectively,
follow the author's books: The Scientific Exploration of Mars, Cam­
bridge University Press, 2009, and Titan: Exploring an Earthlike
World, (with A. Coustenis), World Scientific Publishing, 2008, where
more detailed coverage, illustrations and references may be found.
Other major sources and references that will be of value to the
student are listed at the end of each chapter or, where needed to bolster
a specific point or measurement, in a footnote. Background notes are
also provided in footnotes.
Recommended books

The present book assumes knowledge of the material covered in:

F.W. Taylor, Elementary Climate Physics, Oxford University Press,

2005, which relates to a course taken by Physics undergraduates in the
Third Year at Oxford, i.e., one year before the Planetary A tmospheres
course. For very important material or derivations a summary is given
in this book, with a reference back to the longer discussion in the
introductory text for those who find the material unfamiliar.

For further reading, the following general texts are recommended:

N. McBride and I. Gilmour, eds., An Introduction to the Solar System,
Cambridge University Press, 2004.
J.S. Lewis, The Physics and Chemistry of the Solar System, Academic
Press, 1 995.
J.W. Chamberlain and D.M. Hunten, Theory ofPlanetary Atmospheres,
Academic Press, 2nd edition, 1987.
J.T. Houghton, F.W. Taylor, and C.D. Rodgers, Remote Sounding of
Atmospheres, Cambridge University Press, 1 986, republished 2009.
I. de Pater and J.J. Lissauer, Planetary Sciences, Cambridge University
Press, 200 1.
Contents

1 The Solar System, the planets and their

atmospheres 1
1.1 The Solar System 1
1 .2 The inner planets 4
1 .2. 1 V olatiles on Mercury 5
1 .2.2 The atmosphere and climate of Venus 8
1 .2.3 The atmosphere and climate of Earth 13
1 .2.4 The atmosphere and climate of Mars 15
1 .3 The outer planets 16
1 . 3 . 1 The atmosphere o f Jupiter 17
1 .3 .2 The atmosphere of Saturn 18
1 . 3 . 3 Uranus and Neptune 20
1 .4 Titan: a satellite with an atmosphere and a climate 23
1 .5 Comparative climatology 25
1 .6 References and further reading 29

2 Origin and evolution of planetary atmospheres 30

2. 1 The origin of the Solar System 30
2.2 Planetary system formation theories 31
2.2. 1 The Kant-Laplace nebular hypothesis 32
2.2.2 Encounter theories 32
2.2.3 The protoplanet theory 32
2.3 Models of planet formation 35
2. 3 . 1 Collapse criteria for the protosolar nebula 35
2.3.2 Formation of planets 36
2.3.3 The shape of the solar nebula 36
2.3.4 Compositional variations between planets 38
2.3.5 The T-Tauri phase of the Sun 39
2.4 Formation of atmospheres 40
2.5 Atmospheric stability and escape mechanisms 41
2. 5 . 1 Thermal escape: Jeans' formula 42
2.5.2 Hydrodynamic escape 44
2.5.3 Solar wind erosion 44
2.5.4 Impact escape 45
2.6 References and further reading 46
2.7 Questions 46
X Contents

3 Observations of planetary atmospheres 48

3. 1 Planetary missions 48

Mariner 2 ( 1 962) and the Venera

3.2 Venus exploration 48
3.2. 1
series (1961-1984) 48
3 .2.2 Pioneer Venus (1 979) 49
3.2.3 Venus Express (2006) 49
3 .2.4 Future observations 49

Mariner 9 (1971)
3.3 Mars exploration 51
3.3 . 1 51
3.3.2 Viking (1 976) 51
3 . 3 . 3 Mars Express (2003) 51
3 . 3.4 Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (2006) 51

Voyager 1 and 2 ( 1 979)

3.4 Outer planets: Jupiter and Saturn exploration 52
3 .4. 1 52
3 .4.2 Galileo ( 1 996) 52
3.5 Titan 52
3.6 Infrared remote sounding instruments 53
3.7 Radiometric performance 54
3 .7 . 1 The radiative transfer equation 55
3 .7 .2 Signal-to-noise ratio and errors 56
3 .7 . 3 Retrievals 58

Mariner 2 microwave radiometer

3.8 Venus experiments 58
3.8.1 58
3 .8 . 2 Pioneer Venus orbiter Radiometric
Temperature-Sounding Experiment
(VORTEX) 60
3.8.3 Venus Express VIRTIS 63

Mariner 4 radio occultation

3 .9 Mars experiments 63

3 .9.2 Mariner 9 Infrared Interferometer

3.9.1 63

Spectrometer (IRIS) 64
3 .9 . 3 Mars Express Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) 64
3 . 9 .4 Mars Climate Sounder - 64

3 . 1 0. 1 Pioneer 10 and 11 Infrared Radiometer

3.10 Jupiter experiments 66

(IRR) 66
3 . 1 0.2 Voyager Infrared Interferometer
Spectrometer (IRIS) 67
3 . 1 0. 3 Galileo Near Infrared Mapping
Spectrometer (NIMS) 68
3. 1 1 Titan experiments 70
3 . 1 1 . 1 Cassini Composite Infrared Spectrometer
(CIRS) 70
3.12 References and further reading 72
3.13 Questions 73
Contents

4 Energy balance and entropy 74

4.1 Bolometric and greenhouse temperatures 74
4.2 Radiative energy balance of a planet 75
4.2.1 Effective radiating temperature 76
4.3 Model spectra of the planets 78
4.4 Radiative balance on Venus 78
4.4.1 Comparing the energy budgets of Venus
and Earth 79
4.4.2 Contributions of individual components
to the greenhouse effect 81
4.4.3 Entropy fluxes on Earth and Venus 81
4.5 Mars 84
4.5.1 The maximum surface temperature on Mars 84
4.5.2 Polar night 85
4.5.3 A two-box energy balance model for Mars 85
4.6 Internal heat sources on the outer planets 87
4.7 A two-box model for Titan 89
4.8 References and further reading 91
4.9 Questions 92

5 Atmospheric temperature structure 93

5. 1 Model vertical temperature profiles for the terrestrial
planets 93
5.2 Observed vs. model temperature profiles: Earth 97
5.3 Observed vs. model temperature profiles: Venus 99
5.4 The global temperature structure on Venus 1 00
5.5 Calculated vs. measured temperature profiles: Mars 101
5.6 Calculated vs. measured temperature profiles: Jupiter 1 02
5.7 Thermal structure in Titan's atmosphere 1 06
5.8 References and further reading 1 10
5.9 Questions 1 10

6 Atmospheric composition and chemistry 1 12

6.1 Bulk compositional of terrestrial planetary
atmospheres 1 12
6.2 'Original' vs. 'derived' composition 1 13
6.3 Processes causing compositional variations 1 15
6.4 Key chemical cycles 116
6.5 Volatile behaviour of carbon dioxide on Mars 118
6.6 Water on Mars 1 20
6.7 Water on Venus 1 23
6.8 Carbon-monoxide chemistry on Venus 1 24
6.9 Sulphur dioxide on Venus and Earth 1 27
6.1 0 Isotopic ratios in atmospheric gases 1 30
6. 1 1 Composition and chemistry in outer planet
atmospheres 131
6.1 2 Elemental abundances in Jupiter's atmosphere 1 34
6.1 3 Water on Jupiter 1 35
xii Contents

6. 14 Atmospheric composition on Titan 136

6. 1 5 The methane problem on Titan 1 39
6. 1 6 References and further reading 1 39
6.17 Questions 1 40

7 Clouds, haze, aerosols, and dust 141

7. 1 Cloud structure on Venus 141
7. 1 . 1 Particle size and composition from
photopolarimetry 1 42
7. 1 . 2 Vertical structure 1 42
7 . 1 .3 Production schemes 1 44
7. 1 .4 Lightning 1 46
7.2 Clouds and airborne dust on Mars 1 46
7.2. 1 C0 2 clouds 1 46
7 .2.2 Water clouds 147
7 .2.3 Airborne dust 1 47
7.2.4 Dust dynamics and storms 1 50
7.3 Cloud formation, composition and mass density
on Jupiter 1 53
7.4 Clouds, haze and rain on Titan 1 56
7 .4. 1 The haze layers in the upper atmosphere 1 57
7 .4.2 Clouds in the troposphere 1 59
7.5 References and further reading 1 59
7.6 Questions 1 60

8 Dynamics of planetary atmospheres 1 62

8.1 Introduction 1 62
8. 1 . 1 General circulation regimes 1 62--
8 . 1 .2 Waves, eddies and turbulence 1 65
8 . 1 . 3 Transient phenomena 1 67
8 .2 Earth atmospheric circulation 1 67
8 .2. 1 Geostrophic balance 1 67
8 .2.2 The thermal wind equation 1 68
8.2.3 Cyclostrophic balance 1 68
8 .2.4 The Rossby number 1 69
8 .2.5 The deformation radius 170
8.2.6 Zonal superrotation 171
8 .2.7 Meridional circulation 172
8.2.8 Waves 173
8 .3 Venus dynamics and meteorology 1 74
8.3. 1 Measurements and key phenomena 1 74
8 . 3 .2 The zonal superrotation 175
8 . 3 . 3 Meridional circulation 1 80
8. 3.4 Polar vortex 181
8 . 3 . 5 Subsolar-to-antisolar circulation 185
8.4 Mars dynamics and meteorology 1 86
8 .4. 1 Key features 1 86
8 .4.2 Simple circulation models 1 87
Contents XIII

8.4.3 General circulation models and remote

sensing data 1 89
8 .4.4 Dynamics of the seasonal C02 cycle 1 92
8 .4. 5 Seasonal dust cycle 193
8.5 Atmospheric dynamics o f the Jovian planets 1 93
8.5. 1 The banded structure 195
8 . 5 .2 Vertical velocity estimate for Jupiter 1 99
8 . 5 . 3 The long-lived giant eddies 1 99
8.6 Titan atmospheric dynamics 20 1
8 . 6. 1 Zonal motions 202
8.6.2 The meridional circulation 204
8 .6.3 Weather, waves, tides and turbulence 206
8.7 References and further reading 207
8.8 Questions 208

9 Climate and global change 21 1

9.1 Definition o f climate 21 1
9.2 Climate change 212
9.3 Models o f climate change o n the Earth 214
9.4 The climate of Venus 218
9.4. 1 Early speculation about the climate
on Venus 218
9.4.2 Surface-atmosphere interactions 218
9 .4.3 Recent missions to Venus 220
9.4.4 Venus climate models: GCMs 222
9.4.5 Venus climate models: evolutionary models 223
9.4.6 Evolutionary model simulations for Venus 226
9.4.7 Venus climate models: simple approaches 227
9.5 Climate change on Mars 230
9.5.1 Evidence for climate change 230
9.5.2 Liquid water on early Mars 232
9 . 5 . 3 Atmospheric composition, volatiles,
and isotopic ratios 233
9.5.4 The polar caps 233
9 . 5 . 5 The layered terrain 234
9 . 5 . 6 V olcanism on Mars 235
9.5.7 Evidence for recent surface liquid water 235
9.6 Mechanisms for climate change 236
9.6. 1 Solar variations 236
9 .6.2 Cyclical variations in Mars' orbital
parameters , 237
9.6.3 Loss of an early dense atmosphere 238
9.7 Mars climate models 239
9 . 8 A sketch o f the Martian climate over time 240
9.9 The climate on Titan 241
9 . 1 0 Exoplanet atmospheres 244
9 . 1 1 References and further reading 245
9. 1 2 Questions 246
xiv Contents

Glossary 248
Appendix A Some useful data 254
Appendix B Reference model atmospheres 256
Index 259
The Solar System, the planets
and their atmospheres

1 .1 The Solar System

The study of planetary atmospheres helps us to understand the origin,
evolution and current properties of the family of planets that orbit the
Sun. Of particular interest at the present time is the investigation of the
variability and overall stability of these atmospheres, to understand
the surface environment and climate. On the best known example,
Earth, these depend on a complicated, changing, and far from com­
pletely understood balance between radiative, dynamical and chemical
processes, all of which have analogues on the other planets. By inves­
tigating all of them, we learn more than we would by studying the
Earth as an isolated example.
Figures 1.1 and 1 .2 show the scale of the Solar System. The planets
fall into two groups: four small, rocky inner planets, and four large,
fluid outer planets. The satellites and rings of the outer planets give us
clues to the origin and evolution of the system as a whole, as do the
small rocky and icy bodies concentrated in the asteroid belt between
Mars and Jupiter, and the icy Kuiper belt objects that orbit beyond
Neptune. These small bodies inform us about the history of the Solar
System as a whole, but obviously are less-valuable analogues of the

Venus, Earth and Mars, the inner Solar System planets with substan­
Earth and its climate system than the planets themselves.

tial atmospheres, are of moderate size when compared to the asteroids

and comets on one hand, and the gas giants of the outer Solar System on
the other (Table 1 . 1). All have rocky surfaces, and interiors that contain
large abundances of heavy elements, such as iron and nickel. Their 1 An atmosphere, or any other object, is

atmospheres are geometrically thin compared to the planetary radius, optically thick at a given wavelength when
but they are dense enough to be optically thick at some wavelengths 1 and a photon of that wavelength has only a
small chance, typically defined as less
to have a profound influence on the radiative energy balance prevailing than e- 5 or about 0.67%, of being trans­
at the solid surface (a useful definition of a 'thick' atmosphere when mitted without absorption or scattering.

emitting wavelength of the Sun ( O 7 f.Lm), and optically thick near the
studying climate). Earth's atmosphere is optically thin near the peak
2 The unit of wavelength most used in
peak emitting wavelength of the Earth's surface ( 1 5 f.Lm ).
rv .

2
The four giant or 'Jovian' planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and
rv
the infrared is the micron or micrometre,
abbreviated fkm, which is one thou­

Neptune, dominate the outer Solar System. They account for 99.6%
sandth of a millimetre. The wavelength
of visible light ranges approximately
of the total mass of the planets and have very deep atmospheres and from 0.38 to 0.75 fkm.
large complements of satellites. The differences in the compositions of
2 The Solar System, the planets a n d their atmospheres

10 Mkm

1 Mkm

Fig. 1.1
The Solar System: orbital distances. The scale in the lower diagram is ten times smaller than the upper one, in order to display the inner
planets and the approximate location of the densest part of the asteroid belt. The upper frame shows the outer planet orbits, and the
approximate location of the densest part of the Kuiper belt. The orbit of Jupiter appears in both frames for reference .

" • • •

>- Cl) I Cl)

a: ::::> f- a:
URANUS NEPTUN E
::::> z a: <(
() u.J <( �
a: > u.J
u.J
� JUPITER SATURN
1 00,000 km

Fig. 1 . 2
The relative sizes of the planets. By this criterion alone, they clearly form two families.
 The Solar System 3

Table1.1 The physical properties of the planets, in dimensionless units relative to Earth = I.
For absolute units, see the additional tables in Appendix A.

Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune

Solar distance 0.387 0.723 1. 524 5.2 9.5 19.2 30. 1

Orbital period 0.241 0.61 5 1 .881 1 1 .9 29. 5 84 165
Rotational period 58.8 243 1 .029 0.41 1 0.428 0.748 0.802
Orbital eccentricity 1 2.353 0.4 1 2 5.471 2.824 3.294 2.706 0.529
Obliquity 0 7.548 1 .023 0 . 1 28 1.151 4.179 1 .237
Equatorial radius 0.38 0.95 0.53 1 1 .2 9.4 4.0 3.9
Mass 0.055 0.8 1 6 0 . 1 07 318 95 14.5 17. 1
Density 0.985 0.950 0.714 0.241 0 . 1 27 0.230 0.3 1 9
Surface gravity 0.283 0.877 0.379 2.355 0.928 0.887 1 . 121
Escape velocity 0.384 0.929 0.214 5.232 2.955 1 .893 2.259

these bodies, compared with the compositions of the inner planets,

indicate that the differences originated in the processes by which the
Solar System was formed. The most important of these, as we discuss
in Chapter 2, is the distance from the Sun, at the time of planet
formation, where the temperature fell below the freezing point of
3 The Earth-like atmosphere of Titan, a
water, allowing the rapid accumulation of mass in the form of icy
material. This 'snow line' was evidently between the orbits of Mars,
relatively recent revelation, gives us a
the outermost rocky planet, and Jupiter, the innermost gas giant. The '
problem with terminology. In astron­
icy protoplanets in the outer Solar System quickly became massive omy, the 'terrestrial planets' are trad­
enough to attract and hold large quantities of the elements that itionally taken to be the four rocky
inner planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth
The largest satellite of Saturn, Titan, is a unique case in our planet­
remained gaseous, including the most abundant: hydrogen and helium.
and Mars. So Titan is neither 'terrestrial'
nor a planet - although it is part of this
ary system of a moon with a thick atmosphere (thicker than Earth's, in family - displacing airless Mercury when
fact). It is also the only known example, other than Earth, of a body we consider the four Earth-like atmo­
with a substantial atmosphere in which the main component is nitro­ spheres in the Solar System. Since Titan
gen. Thus, although it is in the outer Solar System and is a satellite and is also larger than Mercury, and has
more atmosphere than Earth or Mars,
not a planet, Titan offers a further example of an Earth-like atmos­
phere, making a total of four with Venus, Mars and Earth itself. 3
it can legitimately be called a 'planetary

The innermost planet, Mercury, has only a trace of atmosphere, and

body' and indeed, in this sense, is some­
times referred to simply as a 'planet' in
yet it is not completely negligible for comparative climate studies with the scientific discourses.
Earth since its polar regions appear to be rich in frozen volatiles, prob­
ably mainly water ice. Mercury, with virtually no gaseous envelope, no 4 Pluto was discovered in 1930, and des­
obvious source of large amounts of water, and in a severe thermal ignated the ninth planet in the Solar Sys­
tem. However, in 2006, the International

Piuto, still thought of by many as a member of the family of planets,

environment, manages to support substantial deposits of ice at its poles. Astronomical Union defined a planet as
a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around
is now officially excluded from that definition. 4 With a mass of only the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its
about one-fifth of Earth's Moon, and a tenth of that of Titan, Pluto is self-gravity to overcome rigid body
forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic
properly considered a member of the Kuiper belt. As such, it is j ust one
equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and
of a large number of frozen bodies, some considerably more massive (c) has cleared the neighbourhood
than Pluto, orbiting near the limits of the Sun's influence. Because it around its orbit. Pluto failed test (c),
was discovered as long ago as 1 930, Pluto remains the best studied of and is now considered to be just one of
the Kuiper belt objects. Pluto has a relatively large satellite, Charon, many dwarf planets (and, since the dis­
covery in 2005 of Xena, now officially
about one-seventh of the mass of its parent, and a thin atmosphere that
renamed Eris, is not even the largest of
derives from frozen nitrogen and other volatiles, including methane, these).
ethane and propane, on its surface. Because Pluto has a very eccentric
4 The Sola r System, the planets and their atmospheres

orbit, its surface pressure cycles from almost nothing at the greatest

5 1 AU = l . 5 x 1 0 1 1 m = 1 astronomical
distance from the Sun (rv50 AU), to perhaps a few hundredths of a
millibar during its closest approach (rv30 AU) . 5
unit, the mean distance of Earth from
the Sun.
1 .2 The inner planets
·
The four inner planets orbit the Sun at mean distances of 57.9, 1 08.2, 149 .6,
and 227.9 million kilometres, respectively. The solid bodies of Venus and
Earth are of nearly identical size and density and probably fairly similar in
bulk composition. Mars is considerably smaller, with a diameter a little
more than half that of the other two, and only about one-tenth of the mass.
Mercury is smaller still, with about half the mass of Mars.
Mars has high volcanic mountains and deep canyons, representing the
largest range of topography in the Solar System, despite its small planetary
radius relative to Earth and Venus. The extinct volcano, Olympus Mons, is
more than three times as tall as Everest and more then twice as high as
Maxwell, these being the highest features on Earth and Venus, respect­
ively. Parts of the Valles Marineris are nearly four times as deep as the
Grand Canyon in Alizona, while the canyons in the Ishtar region ofVenus
are midway between the two. All four inner planet surfaces are modified by
volcanism; some of the volcanoes on Earth and probably many more on
Venus are still active. There may be remnant volcanic activity on Mars,
too, but if so this is limited to geothermal hot 'springs' that allow warm
water to seep from underground aquifers onto the surface, where it quickly
evaporates or freezes in the thin, cold air. Recent evidence for the localised
emission of plumes of methane gas tends to support the idea of warm, wet
subsurface chemistry, at least in some isolated locations.
Mars and Earth rotate on their axes with almost the same period, and

6 In other words, the obliquity (the axial

hence have nearly the same length of day. Venus rotates in the retrograde
sense, i.e. east to west, 6 and turns very slowly, only once every 243 days.
tilt or the angle between the rotation Thus the planet's angular momentum vector is in the opposite sense to
vector and the plane of the orbit) of most of the other planets and the Sun; Uranus and Pluto are also anom­
Venus is more than 90°. In fact, it is
remarkably close to 1 80°.
alous but have their rotation axes close to the ecliptic plane, approxin1ately
at right angles to that of the Sun. This is not consistent with any simple
theory of the origin of the Solar System. The fact that Venus rotates slowly
has a profound effect on its atmospheric circulation and, through its effect,
or lack of effect, on the global cloud cover, its surface climate.
If the rotation axis of a planet is inclined towards the Sun, or the
eccentricity of its orbit is significantly different from zero, this will give
rise to seasonal behaviour in any atmosphere that is present. On
Venus, with obliquity close to 1 80° and eccentricity near 0.0, only

however, has a significant axial tilt of 24o and an eccentricity of nearly

very small Sun-driven seasonal changes would be expected. Mars,

0. 1 , enough to change the solar constant by as much as 1 8% during the

year. Earth has almost the same obliquity as Mars and a smaller, but
still significant, eccentricity of 0.0 1 67. The 98° obliquity of Uranus
means that the Sun is nearly overhead, at first one pole and then the
other, for long periods during the planet's year, implying extreme
seasonal behaviour that has yet to be observed in detail.
 The inner planets 5

The year, or time taken to orbit the Sun once, naturally varies with
heliocentric distance and is 224.7 (Earth) days for Venus, 365.3 for
Earth and 687.0 days for Mars. The rotation period of Venus, at 243
days, is longer than the Venusian year. The solar day, i.e., the time for
the Sun to go from noon to noon as seen from the surface of Venus, is
about 1 1 7 (Earth) days.

1.2.1 Volatiles on Mercury

Mercury (like Earth's Moon, the planet-sized object that it most
resembles in appearance, see Fig. 1 .3) has only an extremely tenuous
atmosphere. It consists of molecules like sodium and helium that are
baked out from the surface, and hydrogen and helium captured from
the stream of particles that flows outwards from the Sun. The mean free
path is such that escape from the planet is more likely than a collision
with another molecule (the usual definition of an exosphere), meaning the
atmosphere is transient. Thus, for purposes of comparing atmospheric
physics with the Earth, it is of much less interest than Venus and Mars.
The icy deposits near Mercury's poles are important, however, for
what they tell us about the origin and distribution of water in the Solar
System. These were detected using radar echoes sent and received by
very large radio telescopes on the Earth, in particular that at Arecibo in
Puerto Rico. This can produce images with remarkably high spatial
resolution (a few kilometres), which have allowed the identification of
highly reflective and depolarizing regions inside polar craters, appar­
ently confined to those parts that are permanently shaded from the
Sun. The material responsible cannot be definitely identified from the
radar data alone, but it has the right reflective properties to be water
ice. It is hard to see what other substance could be available in such
quantities and behave in this way, although elemental sulphur of
internal (volcanic) origin has been proposed as a possibility.
Where, then, does the water come from? Mercury will, like the other
rocky inner planets, have emitted large amounts from the interior in its
early history. Some of this may have been cold-trapped at the poles and
survived there for billions of years. Or perhaps Mercury is still active Fig. 1.3
Basic facts about Mercury. Its diameter
of 1.4 times that of the Moon corres­
• Diameter 1.4 times Moon ponds to a radius of 2440 km, and the
density to a total mass of 3 . 3 x 1 020 kg.
Much denser than Moon:
vs. 3.34 g cm-3
•
The innermost planet orbits the Sun in
5.43
just 88 Earth days, rotating on its axis in
• Temperature range 70 to two-thirds of this time. What sort of
700K solar day would this produce for an ob­
server on the surface?7
Thin atmosphere: surface
pressure - 1 0-1 5 atm
•

7 The Sun would take two Mercurian

• Icy polar deposits in years to go from noon to noon. Another

shaded craters way oflooking at it is that daylight would
last for one year, and then darkness would
prevail for the next year. (A sketch is the
easiest way to work this out.)
6 The Sola r System, the planets a n d their atmospheres

internally and continues to exhale vapour from cracks and vents in the
crust, some of which stays in the thin atmosphere long enough to top up
the deposits. This would explain the surprisingly large magnetic field of
the planet, but would require unexpectedly large sources of internal heat­
ing to prevent such a small body from cooling and solidifying eons ago.
An alternativt{. explanation is that the ice comes from space as a flux
of mostly small, but occasionally large, icy bodies (i.e., comets). If a
8 Halley is about 8 x 8 x 1 6 km 3 and comet as big as Halley8 had collided with Mercury a few million years
4
2 x 1 01 kg, formed of a porous aggregate ago, the planet would have acquired a temporary atmosphere consist­
of dust, rock and ice, including some or­
ing mostly of steam, some of which would have been deposited as ice in
ganic material, with a mean density of
3
only 0.6 g cm- . The gases emitted while the shaded craters. In this scenario, the ice we see today, which the
the comet is near the Sun consist mainly observers estimate to be at least several tens of metres thick, is the·
(about 80%) of water vapour, indicating remnant of an event of this kind and will slowly sublime away. How­
that this is the main volatile present. ever, such large impacts are rare in the current era (based, for instance,
on the record on Earth) and instead it may be a large number of very
small comets that is responsible; these certainly exist, and although
their sizes and numbers are unknown some must collide with each of
the planets every day. These impacts must be individually insignificant,
since we do not notice their arrival at the Earth, and we would certainly
notice something even a fraction of the size of Halleyl The upper
limit is a diameter measured in centimetres, with most much smaller
than that, but there could be such large flux of them that they add up to
the equivalent of Halley over a fairly short period of time, like a
century.
To evaluate these, and other possible explanations for the phenomenon,
we need to compare the rate at which water is lost from deposits inside
shaded craters with the estimated rate of supply from different sources.
Figure 1 .4 shows a simplified model of Mercury, with a single bowl-shaped
crater at the north pole containing ice. The sources for this are a mixture of
outgassing from the interior and a flux of 'cometesimals' - icy grains. The

�* :�
Cometesimals -20 m Gy-1 Erosion removes
- 1 0 m Gy-1

H20 from - 80 K in shadow

�
rocks/
interior � Radar echoes

0
-20 m thick

Sun
Fig. 1 .4
A summary of models that seek to If flat T 1 74 K
=

understand the existence of ice deposits

some 20 m thick in the permanently
shaded craters near the poles of Mercury.
Must have T < 1 1 2 K or sublimation > 1 m Gy-1
 The inner planets 7

former is impossible to estimate, especially since it depends where on the

planet the release takes place. The latter is also quite uncertain, but might
be capable of depositing 20 m of ice in one billion years without being
inconsistent with our limited understanding of the inventory of icy debris
in the Solar System.
The loss processes are sublimation and erosion by micrometeorites.
The latter are the rocky equivalents of the icy cometesimals, and their
fluxes are such that around 1 0 m of ice could be vaporised each billion
years. Sublimation, of course, is a strong function of temperature,
following an expression of the form

where V is the evaporation rate, p the vapour pressure over the ice at
temperature T, and k is Boltzmann's constant. Using this, we find that
the sublimation rate reaches 1 metre per billion years for T rv 1 1 2 K.
Simple radiative energy balance models with the appropriate geometry
suggest that the polar region on a smooth, spherical Mercury would
have a temperature of around 1 7 6 K, while the prevailing temperature
in a shaded, bowl-shaped crater with a realistic ratio of depth to
diameter of 0.2 would remain under 100 K. (The main factor keeping
this from being much lower is scattering of sunlight from the crater
rims, so for the realistic case of irregularly shaped craters and walls the
precise value is different in every ease l 9 See, for instance, the calculations for
This simple model suggests that water from icy grains could have idealised craters in 'Near-surface tem­
peratures on Mercury and the Moon
accumulated on Mercury in the amounts observed over the 4 billion and the stability of polar ice deposits'
years or so since the surface of the planet cooled, without the need to by Ashwin R. Vasavada, David A.
invoke current volcanism or massive recent collisions. The question is Paige, and Stephen E. Wood, Icarus,
not answered thereby, of course, and many issues remain, including the Vol. 141, Issue 2, October 1 999, pages
fact that some of the craters containing ice behind the Sun-facing wall 1 79-1 93.

are far enough from the pole to have minimum calculated temperat­
ures that are as high as 1 50 K. Then, if cometesimals are the source,
rv

there should be similar deposits on Earth's Moon, which also has

permanently shaded craters. This would be great for future lunar
bases, but paradoxically it has proved harder to demonstrate the
existence of icy deposits on the Moon than it was on distant Mercury.
A small radar device on the Clementine spacecraft, which flew over the
lunar south pole in 1 994, detected ice-like reflections from the shadowed
part of the Aitken basin, which sits right at the pole. A neutron detector on
the Lunar Prospector Orbiter confirmed in 1 998 a high hydrogen concen­
tration there, and found an even larger signal at the north pole. Despite
this, when the spacecraft was crashed into Aitken at the end of its mission,
spectral evidence for the expected cloud of water-related molecules like
hydroxyl (OH) was not found. However, the impact into the crater Cabeus
of the Centaur upper-stage rocket that delivered the Lunar Crater Obser­
vation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), also watched by instruments on
the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter just 50 km overhead, achieved a posi­
tive result in 2009.
8 The Solar System, the planets and their atmospheres

• Covered in thick
sulphuric acid clouds
• Very thick C02
Fig. 1 .5 atmosphere
Venus imaged through an ultraviolet • Surface pressure of
filter by the Galileo spacecraft in 1 990, 90 atm
of 730K
and some key facts about the observed • Surface temperature
climate on the planet.

1.2.2 The atmosphere and climate of Venus

Venus (Fig. l . 5) is the closest planet to the Earth, both in terms of
distance and in terms of its physical characteristics. The two planets are
almost the same size and mean density (see Table 1 .2), and, so far as we
know and expect, have much the same solid-body composition. The
largest external differences appear in the absence of a natural satellite
around Venus, the slow, retrograde rotation of the solid body of
Venus, and the absence of a measurable Venusian planetary magnetic
field. The crust of Venus seems to lack plate tectonics and to be instead
much more volcanically active than the Earth.
As the brightest of the planets, Venus has always been a much-noted
feature of the night sky near dawn or dusk. Under optimum condi­
tions, Venus can be seen even in the daytime, always within 45° of the
10 In astronomy, an 'inferior' orbit is Sun due to its inferior orbit relative to the Earth. 1 0 Many of the
one that is closer to the Sun than that parameters listed in Table 1 .2 have been known from the early days
of the Earth.
of scientific observations using telescopes, including the fact that

Table 1 .2 Data relevant to climate on the four bodies with Earth-like atmospheres. The
atmospheric composition is given as mole fractions, with ppm meaning p arts per million, ppb
parts per billion, and � o meaning undetermined but very small.

Venus Earth Mars Titan

Mean distance from Sun 1 .082 X 1 08 1 .496 X 1 08 1 .524 X 1 08 1 .426 X 1 09

Eccentricity 0.0068 0.0 1 67 0.0934 0.0288
Obliquity (deg) 1 77 23.45 23.98 27
Year 0.615 1 1.88 29.41
Rotational period (hours) 5832.24 23.9345 24.6229 382.68
Solar day (days) 1 17 1 1 . 0287 16
2
Solar constant (kW m - ) 2.62 1.38 0.594 0.0156
Net heat input (kW m - 2) 0.367 0. 842 0.499 0.0122
Atmospheric:
Molecular weight (g) 43.44 28.98 (dry) 43.49 29
Surface temperature (K) 730 288 220 95
Surface pressure (bar) 92 1 0.007 1 .467
Mass (kg) 4. 77 x 1 0 20 5.30 X 1 0 1 8 � 1 01 6 3 X 1 01 8
Composition:
Carbon dioxide .96 .0003 .95 1 5 ppb
Nitrogen .035 .770 .027 .984
Argon .000 07 .0093 .016 .000 04
Water vapour �.0001 �.01 �.0003 8 ppb
Oxygen �o .21 .00 1 3 �o
Sulphur dioxide 1 50 ppm .2 ppb �o �o
Carbon monoxide 40 ppm . 1 2 ppm 700 ppm 30 ppm
Neon 5 ppm 1 8 ppm 2.5 ppm �o
 The inner planets 9

Venus has a very high reflectivity (albedo), evidently due to a thick and
ubiquitous cloud cover. At A = 0.76, the albedo of Venus is two and a
half times that of the Earth, 1 1 more than offsetting the doubling of the 11 Planetary albedos are difficult to de­
solar constant at Venus' mean distance from the Sun in the energy termine and not very accurately known,
balance equation: even for the Earth. Various values will be
found in the literature, corresponding to
this uncertainty.

where the quantity of the left-hand side is the solar energy absorbed by
the planet of radius R, allowing for the fraction A of the solar constant
S that is reflected, and the right-hand side is the energy emitted from
the planet of equivalent blackbody temperature T£, according to the
Stefan-Boltzmann law. The value of TE that results from the applica­
tion of this simple balance equation is 255 K for Earth, but only about
240 K for Venus (see Chapter 4).
Since Venus absorbs less radiant energy than Earth, there was no
particular reason why early practitioners of what we would now call
climate modelling should expect the surface temperature to be mas­
sively different from our own, and the popular vision of the surface of
Venus often included oceans, deserts and steamy jungles. The Sun,
presenting a disc twice the area it shows at the Earth, was thought to
evaporate water efficiently and produce the thick and extensive cloud

12 'Absorption bands in the infra-red

deck when the water condensed in the cooler upper atmosphere. When,
2
in 1 932, the composition of the atmosphere was shown 1 to be mainly
carbon dioxide, soda water oceans became the vogue for Venus. 1 3 spectrum of Venus' by W.S. Adams and
T. Dunham, Jr., in Publications of the
In the 1950s, it became possible to estimate the surface temperature Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Vol.
of Venus for the first time using radio telescopes to measure the inten­ 44, No. 260, pages 243-245, 1 932.
sity of emitted microwave radiation. At wavelengths of a few centi­
metres, photons emitted from the surface of the planet pass almost 13 As discussed on television by Patrick
unaffected through the cloud layers, and can be measured on Earth. Moore in The Sky at Night, for instance.
The early results for Venus showed temperatures that were much too
hot for free water or plant life. The first space mission to Venus,
Mariner 2, carried a small microwave radiometer to confirm this meas­
urement from close range and show, by observing limb darkening, that
the intense radiation was indeed coming from the surface, and not from
a non-thermal source like the ionosphere. Later, the Soviet Venera
series of spacecraft made a series of landings on the planet's surface,
confirming that the temperature was around 730 K, above the melting
points of soft metals like lead and tin, and accompanied by a pressure of
92 bars, nearly a hundred Earth atmospheres.
Venera 13 confirmed that the atmosphere is nearly pure carbon
dioxide, and obtained a view of a region of the surface of Venus that
is typical, featuring volcanic hills and mountains, and fractured lava
plains (Fig. 1 . 6). Radar imaging from orbit shows that there are also
flow features of various kinds, including long, sinuous channels. The
sky is permanently cloudy, although the thickness varies and the Sun
shines dimly through the regions of thinner cloud, with lightning
(probably cloud-to-cloud rather than cloud-to-ground as on Earth)
generated in the thick, convective clouds.
10 The Solar System, the planets a nd their atmospheres

Fig. 1.6
Views of the surface of Venus, from the
Soviet lander Venera 13 sitting on
Phoebe Regio in 1 975 (top), and the
same region seen from aloft some 1 5
years later by the US Magellan orbiting
radar imager.

The absence of an internal magnetic field on Venus means that the

atmosphere is exposed directly to the stream of very energetic charged
particles, mostly protons, that moves radially outwards at high speed
from the Sun. The lightest atoms and ions, like hydrogen, formed by the
 The inner planets 11

dissociation of water vapour and other gases by solar ultraviolet radi­

ation, are easily removed from the top of the atmosphere by collisions
with these solar wind particles. Oxygen is also removed, at a rate which
even today is observed by Venus Express 14 to be about half that of 14 The first European mission to Venus,
hydrogen, supporting the expectation that H20 is the main source mol­ launched 6 November 2005, arrived on
1 1 April 2006.
ecule. Over its history, Venus could have lost most of the water it
probably had in its early life and, as a direct consequence of this, has
retained in its atmosphere huge amounts of carbon dioxide (§6. 7). On the
Earth, which retained most of its water, corresponding amounts of C02
have dissolved in the oceans and f01med carbonate rocks. Earth and
Venus have retained approximately equal masses of nitrogen, although
on the latter this is diluted by the additional carbon dioxide and makes up
only 2-3% of the total atmosphere, compared to 79% on Earth.
The effect of a column abundance of C02 that is around 1 000 km­
atm of C02 on Venus, compared to 0.001 km-atm on Earth, is a very
large 'greenhouse' warming of nearly 500 K, compared to only rv30 K
on Earth. Understanding the details of the energy balance at each level
requires also investigating the extent and variability of the clouds, and
their composition of water, H2S04 , and other substances not yet
identified. The dynamics and circulation of the global atmosphere
are also key components of the climate.
At visible wavelengths, the cloud cover on Venus is complete and
impenetrable, with no markings that could be associated with contin­
ents, oceans or any of the topographical features which a moderately
sized telescope reveals on the other inner planets. Instead, only ex­
tremely subtle and ephemeral markings, and some 'scalloping' of the
terminator which separates the day and night sides, have been reported
by visual observers. If a camera is used instead of the eye, and it is
equipped with an ultraviolet filter like that on Mariner 10 which
observed Venus from a distance of 1 0,000 kilometres in 1973, subtle
dark markings appear in the clouds (Fig. 1 .5). In the mid 1980s, it was
discovered that different patterns with higher levels of contrast can be
observed at certain wavelengths in the near-infrared part of the spec­
trum, originating in the cloud structure at considerably greater depths
than those seen in the ultraviolet. Large-scale meteorological activity
organises the clouds into patterns, mainly convective near the equator
with more laminar flow at higher latitudes (Fig 1 .7).

-30
Cl
Fig. 1 .7
Clouds in the southern hemisphere on
Q)
the night side of Venus, imaged in the
� -50
"0
near-infrared 'window' at 1 .7 f.Lm wave­
"0
.2 length by the VIRTIS spectrometer on
·o, Venus Express in April 2006. The clouds
c
.3 -70 are illuminated from below by thermal
emission from the hot, deep atmosphere
and surface. The turbulent region near
the equator (towards the top of the
-1 80 -140 -1 00 -60 -20 image) forms a sharp transition at mid
Latitude (deg) latitudes to laminar flow nearer the pole.
12 The Solar System, the planets and their atmospheres

The near-infrared radiation from Venus is most intense within spec­

tral 'windows' between the strong molecular absorption bands of C02
and H20 in the 0.9 to 2.5 fLm wavelength region. The clouds provide
some attenuation of the flux emitted by the hot lower atmosphere and
1 5 The single scattering albedo is the
surface, but the very high single scattering albedo 1 5 of the cloud drop­
probability that a photon encountering
lets in the near infrared means that photons can diffuse to space in the
a cloud drop will be scattered rather than
absorbed. It is close to 1 in the near
spectral windows between the absorption bands of the main atmos­
infrared for the cloud particles on Venus . pheric constituents. From Earth or from Venus orbit it can be detected
only on the night side of the planet, where it is not overwhelmed by the
more intense solar flux reflected from the upper clouds (Fig. 1 . 8).
Spectroscopic analysis of observations of the emission in the near-IR
windows by ground-based and spacecraft instruments have been used to
investigate cloud particle sizes and optical thickness, and near-IR im­
aging of the shifting cloud patterns reveals the winds within the middle
and lower cloud decks. The cloud features seen in both ultraviolet and
near-infrared images move parallel to the equator at speeds as high as
l OO m sec- 1 (around 400 mph) with high vertical shear (i.e., winds that
drop off rapidly with height) in the turbulent region, and a gradual
decline towards the pole in the laminar flow region. The polar regions
themselves are organised into giant polar vortices with a double 'eye' at
the centre. These complex dynamics are discussed in Chapter 8.
During the 1991 Venus fly-by of the Galileo spacecraft, en route for
Jupiter, it was found that the principal topographical features on the
surface of the planet could also be discerned in images obtained in the
most transparent of the near-infrared windows, those at wavelengths
just longer than that of visible light. Unlike the cloud contrasts, which
are due to varying cloud thickness, the surface contrasts originate in
the temperature lapse rate of the atmosphere. The fall in temperature
with height of about 1 0 K km - 1 causes high terrain on Venus to appear
dark in maps of the thermal emission from the surface. To see these
clearly requires a technique for removing the much larger contrasts due
to cloud structure, which is possible since the latter vary with wave­
Fig. 1 .8
A composite spectrum of Venus1 6
length and move rapidly relative to the fixed surface features .
showing the reflected solar component Spectroscopy i n the near-IR windows also allows mapping of the
(dashed line), the thermally emitted abundance of interesting minor constituents of the atmosphere near
component (dotted line), and the ther­
mal emission in the near-infrared win­
dows (solid line) . Obviously, the last of
these can only be observed on the night
side of the planet, as it is swamped by the

L.
reflected solar radiation, about 1 000

E
times brighter, on the day side. I
�

'?
(/) I

E
1 03
I

I
16 From 'Radiation in the atmosphere
'windows'
5: 1 02
of Venus' by D. Titov, M.A. Bullock, (/)
D. Crisp, N . Renno, F .W . Taylor, and
L. V. Zasova, in Exploring Venus as a
Terrestrial Planet, ed. by L .W . Esposito,
E.R. Stofan, and T. E. Cravens, Geo­
physical Monograph No . 176, pages
1 121-138, American Geophysical 1 .0 1 0.0
Union, 2007. Wavelength (j.tm)
 The inner planets 13

the surface, including water vapour, halides, carbon monoxide, sulphur

dioxide, and carbonyl sulphide. They have provided new information
about the near-surface temperature lapse rate, and the deuterium-to­
hydrogen ratio. The latter is more than 1 00 times that on Earth,
supporting the idea that Venus has lost large amounts of hydrogen,
therefore water, to space, a process that would be expected to produce
fractionation between the lighter and heavier isotopes.
The small inclination and eccentricity of Venus' orbit means that we
should expect no significant seasonal changes during its annual circuit
around the Sun, and none has been observed.

1.2.3 The atmosphere and climate of Earth

A distinctive feature of the Earth in climate terms is that it orbits at a
distance from the Sun where water can coexist in each of its three
forms. Atmospheric water vapour, the circulating oceans, and the
permanent but fluctuating water ice polar caps are all key components
of the Earth's variable climate (Fig. 1 .9).
Life is also a phenomenon that, on a scale large enough to affect the
climate, is probably unique to the Earth, in the Solar System at least.
Processes involving living organisms significantly affect the atmospheric
composition, including the proportions of oxygen and carbon dioxide.
Green plants convert atmospheric carbon dioxide to carbohydrates,
releasing oxygen in the process, by the reaction known as photosynthesis,
which is essentially:

i.e., carbon dioxide + water + photons � glucose + oxygen +

water.
Carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere by dissolving in
water and forming carbonic acid

that can weather silicate rocks, producing ions that are used by marine
organisms like coral to make, eventually, insoluble calcium carbonate

• Water in all three phases

• Widespread water clouds
• 70% liquid H20 coverage
• N2-0 2 atmosphere
• Surface pressure 1 bar
• Mean surface
temperature 288 k Fig. 1 .9
• Life is part of climate Planet Earth, an<;l some basic facts about
its atmosphere.
14 The Solar System, the planets and their atmospheres

which is stored on the seafloor as layers of limestone (the white cliffs of

Dover were produced in this way, for example).
Some of the carbon dioxide is returned to the atmosphere when
limestone is cartied , to hot, deep regions of the crust in subduction
zones, where the reaction

takes place, followed by outgassing in volcanoes. The current balance

between all of these processes results in an atmospheric abundance of
carbon dioxide of about 400 parts per million by volume (ppm), much
less than Venus or Mars where there is no comparable biosphere and
no surface liquid water. The resulting mean surface temperature is
both calculated and measured (see Chapter 4) to be around 288 K.
Why is Earth so cool and wet when Venus, a similar-sized planet
which formed nearby from the same protostellar cloud, is hot and dry?
A clue may be obtained by plotting typical temperature profiles for
both atmospheres on a scale where the vertical dimension is represented
by log pressure, as shown in Fig. 1 . 1 0. In the region where the two
profiles overlap, the difference is fairly straightforwardly accounted for
by (i) the difference in composition (mostly N2 on Earth, mostly C02 on
Venus), (ii) the heating induced by the ozone layer on Earth, which has
no equivalent on Venus, and (iii) the difference in solar heating (which is
actually greater for Earth, because of Venus' high albedo). The scorch­
ing surface temperature on Venus is caused by the additional atmos­
pheric gas, nearly 1 00 times more than on Earth. It is mostly carbon
dioxide, but it need not be since the atmosphere is already optically
thick in the infrared, adding more of any gas, even a non-greenhouse
gas, raises the surface temperature. On Venus, the temperature at 1 bar
pressure is increasing with depth at a rate approximately equal to the
adiabatic lapse rate (about 1 0 K km- 1 ) , and it must continue to do so

Fig. 1 . 1 0 1 0-4
1 o-3
A comparison o f measured atmosphere /
temperature profiles on Earth and
1 0-2
\
Venus, where the vertical scale is pres­ \

1
'
sure in millibars ( 1 000 mb equals the
£) 1 0- Earth
.s
'
'
mean surface pressure on Earth). The
1 0°
\
solid line is derived from remote sound­
(lJ
Venus
1 01
ing measurements made by the Pioneer >-
::::l
(/)

0:: 1 02
Venus Orbiter Infrared Radiometer (/)
(lJ
(Schofield and Taylor, 1 983), extrapo­

1 03
lated assuming a dry adiabatic lapse rate
below 500 mb, and the dashed profile is
derived from similar measurements by 1 04
the Improved Stratospheric and Mesa­
1 05
spheric Sounder on the Upper Atmos­ 1 00 500 600 700 800
phere Research Satellite (Taylor et al.,
Temperature (K)
1 993).
 The inner planets 15

until the pressure reaches nearly 1 00 bars at the surface, some 45 km

below.
The Earth enjoys its mild, wet climate primarily because the atmos­
pheric pressure is neither too high, as on Venus, nor too low, as on
Mars. This in turn is due to the removal of most of the primordial
carbon dioxide, leaving only the nitrogen and a few minor constituents
like argon, to which life later added the oxygen.

1.2.4 The atmosphere and climate of Mars

Compared to Earth, the atmosphere of Mars is very cold and very
tenuous (Fig. 1 . 1 1) . The composition is mainly C02, with very little
H20 vapour, although the low abundance is mainly due to the low
temperatures. In fact, the Martian air, although very dry by Earth or
even Venus standards, is often close to saturation and water clouds do
occur. These are thin and infrequent, however, and upstaged, espe­
cially in the polar winters, by clouds of condensed C02 (dry ice).
In fact, the most important airborne particles on Mars are neither
frozen water nor frozen carbon-dioxide crystals. The main source of
aerosol opacity is that due to wind-raised mineral dust, which makes a
large contribution to the greenhouse effect and therefore to the surface
temperatures on Mars. During exceptionally strong global dust storms
that occur typically every two years near the perihelion of Mars, the
entire planet can be masked by huge amounts of airborne dust and the
meteorological conditions are greatly changed eve1ywhere. After a
period of up to a few months, the storms subside as quickly as they begin.
By analogy with Earth and Venus, we would expect Mars to have
formed with a much larger invent01y of water and carbon dioxide than
is apparent now. The oldest terrain on the surface shows ample evi­
dence of running and standing water, clearly visible even from orbit,
and supported by the observations of sedimentary deposits on the
surface by the recent Mars Exploration Rovers. To produce these
required not only a lot more water than we can see on Mars at the
present time, but also a much thicker atmosphere to raise the tempera­
ture enough to keep the water liquid. Mars must have undergone
massive climate change over long periods of time in its history.

• Thin C02 atmosphere

• Thin clouds of C02
and H20
• Surface pressure 7
mb
-

• Surface temperature
-250 K
Fig. 1 . 1 1

• Dust storms Mars, and some basic facts about its

atmosphere.
16 The Solar System , the planets a n d their atmospheres

The fact that the present surface temperatures and pressures are so
close to the triple point of water may provide a clue to how the Martian
climate evolved (Fig. l . 1 2) . Any oceans on early Mars would have
dissolved atmospheric C02, just as they do on Earth, producing car­
bonate deposits as chalk layers that have since been buried under
layers of windblown dust and soil. The difference then is that on
Mars this process went to the point where liquid water was no longer
stable, shutting off further carbonate production. At certain locations,
for example, at the bottom of the huge impact basin called Hellas, the
pressure is twice the global average and liquid water could still be
found, although only during the day when the temperature is above
17 The highest measured temperature at freezing point at 0 °C.1 7 In this scenario, the water that once filled
the surface of Mars is about 20 °C, and oceans and rivers is now frozen below the surface, covered up like the
the lowest, - 140 oc. The global average carbonates by centuries of windblown dust deposits, or in the perman­
is about -60 oc.
ent polar caps. The north cap, which seems to contain most of the
water, is 1 200 km across and up to 3 km thick, which corresponds to
about 4% of Earth's polar ice.
At Mars' distance from the Sun, even a thick C02 atmosphere might
not be enough to warm the planet so it could support liquid water on
the surface everywhere (see the discussion in Chapter 9). Here again
there is a clue; Mars has several regions dominated by enormous
extinct volcanoes, and the Exploration Rovers have found copious
deposits of sulphate minerals, apparently produced at the time when
the volcanoes were active and filling the atmosphere with sulphurous
and other gases and aerosols. Although the details are still to be filled
in, the data we have points towards a strong greenhouse effect on Mars
that lasted only as long as the active volcanism did, that is, around the
first billion years of the planet's history.

1 .3 The outer planets

Most of the apparent bulk of the outer planets (Fig. 1 . 1 3) is atmos­
phere: gaseous at the top, becoming liquid lower down where the
pressures and temperatures are very high. The visible features are due
to multiple layers of cloud of different compositions and colouring
(probably four layers according to current models, see Chapter 7, with

Fig. 1.12
(Left) A phase diagram for water,
showing the triple point at 6 . 1 mb and
0 °C, where solid, liquid and gas coexist.
(Right) The corresponding point for
carbon dioxide is at 5. 1 1 bars and
-56 °C. The horizontal bars show mean
pressures on Earth and Mars; the Earth
of course has liquid water, while condi­
tions on Mars are against this, but only
marginally. Neither planet can have li­
quid C0 2, except p ossibly if reservoirs 0 100 -1 23 -79 -56
exist at high pressures below the surface. Temperature (°C) Temperature (0C)
 The outer planets 17

Fig. 1 . 1 3
The giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Ura­
nus and Neptune, approximately to
scale. The small globe at bottom right is
the Earth, for comparison.

many more at greater depths where they are not discernable from
outside the atmosphere). The heavy elements are concentrated in
solid rocky and metallic cores that occupy only a fraction of the visible
diameter. For instance, based on theoretical models and the observed
mean density, the core of Neptune is thought to be about the size of
the Earth, although its gaseous envelope is 4 times greater in diameter.
For the larger giant planet Jupiter, the mass of the core is also larger,
but still only roughly 1 0 times the mass of the Earth.

1 .3.1 The atmosphere of Jupiter

Jupiter (Fig. 1 . 14) is the largest and most massive of the planets in the
Solar System. Its mean diameter is about 1 1 times greater than that of
Earth, so it is more than 1 000 times larger in volume. The rapid
rotation flattens the planet by about 6 percent of its polar diameter,
2
giving it a perceptibly oval shape. Jupiter's mass of 1 .9 x 1 0 7 kg is
more than 300 Earth masses, and 2.5 times the combined total of all the
other bodies orbiting the Sun. Since the mean density is about one­
fourth that of the Earth, it follows that 95% of the mass of Jupiter is
atmosphere, with the heavier elements concentrated in a relatively
small core with a diameter less than 1 0% of that of the visible disc.
At the interface between the core and the highly compressed fluid

• First gas giant

• Mass 300 x Earth
• Radius 1 1 x Earth
• Density 0.24 x Earth
• Atmosphere H2 + He
Fig. 1 . 1 4
General appearance and defining char­
• Temp. 1 65 K at 1 bar acteristics of Jupiter, the largest, closest
and best studied of the four giant outer
planets.
18 The Solar System , the planets and their atmospheres

18 'Metallic' in this context means that (predominantly liquid metallic hydrogen) 1 8 at the base of the atmos­
the gases, under extreme pressure, have a
phere, estimates from models predict temperatures in excess of
high proportion of electrons that are not
attached to individual atoms or mol­
1 0,000 K and pressures of over 4 million bars.
ecules, but can migrate through the en­ The visible surface of Jupiter consists of layers of cloud appearing as
tire medium, as in a metal under familiar alternating dark and light bands parallel to the equator; the darker
laboratory conditions. The hydrogen is reddish and brown coloured bands are called belts, and the lighter yellow
then highly conducting and this makes it
and white regions are known as zones. The banding is the result of
easier to explain Jupiter's high magnetic
field.
convective motions forced by a large internal heat source of approxi­
mately equal magnitude to the solar heating. This internal energy prob­
ably comes from the slow collapse of Jupiter's fluid bulk in response to its
huge gravitational field, converting potential energy into heat.
Jupiter's deep atmosphere probably contains hundreds of layers of
cloud, each with a different composition (see Chapter 7). Moist air,
rising in the cloudy zones from a great depth, contains many minor
constituents, each of which condenses at the appropriate level as the
temperature falls with height. Only the top three layers have actually
been observed - water clouds at about 273 K and 3 bars, ammonium
hydrosulphide (NH4 SH, formed by the combination of ammonia,
NH3 and hydrogen sulphide, H2S) at about 230 K and 1 . 5 bars, and
ammonia ice at 1 3 5 K and 0 . 5 bars. All of these materials are white in
the laboratory, but on Jupiter almost certainly contain impurities,
especially NH4 SH, which appears to be responsible for the yellow
and brown colours that dominate the appearance of Jupiter. It is still
not known of what these 'chromophores' consist; various forms of
elemental sulphur and its compounds are the most likely candidates.
The fast rotation, the great depth of the atmosphere, and the influ­
ence of an internal source of heat, in addition to that arriving from the
Sun, make for a very dynamic atmosphere. Superimposed on the basic
belt-zone cloud patterns are very high winds and wind shears, and a
variety of giant eddies. These are compact, circulating air masses
roughly comparable to terrestrial hurricanes, but often much larger.
The most striking of all the atmospheric features is the Great Red Spot,
which has been observed off and on for at least 300 years, and exceeds
the Earth in diameter. The red colour indicates a composition different
from the rest of the clouds. It seems likely that the GRS is a deep vortex
that draws up material from deep in the atmosphere up to higher levels
where it condenses or reacts to form a cloud cap, with additional
constituents not found elsewhere across the planet. Truly red cloud
materials are fairly rare; the simplest possibility is elemental phos­
phorus, while more exotic candidates include an almost infinite range
of complex organic substances of many colours.

1 .3.2 The atmosphere of Saturn

Saturn (Fig. 1 . 1 5) is second among the planets in terms of mass and
size. The mean diameter of the globe is almost ten times that of the
Earth, and its rapid rotation (a period of a little over 1 0 hours) and low
density give it more polar flattening than any other planet - about 1 1
per cent. Saturn's axis of rotation is inclined by 29° to its orbital plane.
 The o uter planets 19

• Second gas giant

• Mass 95 x Earth
• Radius 9 x Earth
• Density 0.13 x Earth
• Atmosphere H2 + He

• �1 % NH3 + CH4
• Temp. 1 34 K at 1 bar

Fig. 1 . 1 5
General appearance and defining characteristics of Saturn. Note the remarkably low density compared to its neighbours, indicating a
lower proportion of heavier elements in Saturn's overall makeup than the other three outer planets. The rings are made of a large number
of icy and rocky moonlets, with sizes up to a few tens of metres in diameter.

Since the plane of its rings is perpendicular to its rotation axis, the rings
do not lie in the orbital plane and therefore present a varying aspect to
Earth as the planet goes through its roughly 30 year orbit. When seen
almost edgewise, every 1 5 or so years, the rings almost disappear from
sight, indicating that they are very flat. Observations from spacecraft
at Saturn show that the particles that make up the rings are in fact
confined to a layer about 1 km thick.
While Saturn's mass is nearly 1 00 times greater than Earth's, its
density of 0 .69 g cm- 3 is the lowest of any planet. At the same time, the
gravitational field, determined by tracking spacecraft passing or orbit­
ing the planet, indicates that more of Saturn's mass is concentrated
near the centre than is the case for Jupiter; about 25% as opposed to
about 5%. Outside the core, Saturn must be composed primarily of
hydrogen and helium, with a metallic layer occupying the innermost
half of the radius of the planet. Above the pressure level at about 1
million bars the mixture ceases to be metallic, but has the properties of
a liquid up until the 1 000 bar level is reached at a depth about 1 000 km
below the visible clouds, where the temperature is around 1 000 K. 19 19 Obviously, these numbers are
The outermost layer of atmosphere consists, like Jupiter, mostly of rounded to reflect the uncertainty in
our knowledge of the interior structure
H2 and He, with a small component ( < 1 %) of the fully hydrogenated
of Saturn and the other outer planets.
compounds of the common elements, especially CH4 , H20 and NH 3 .
Again, like Jupiter, these condense to form the observable cloud layers.
Saturn, and to a lesser extent Uranus and Neptune, may be thought
of as a smaller, cooler version of Jupiter where meteorology is con­
cerned. The markings on the disc of Saturn resemble the banded cloud
structure of Jupiter's atmosphere, but with much less contrast and
more subtle colours. Giant eddies and ribbon-shaped clouds do
occur, and on rare occasions, extensive irregular storm systems appear,
greater in area than anything seen on Jupiter. Like Jupiter, Saturn
has an internal heat source that is comparable to the solar input
(Table 1 . 3), so the atmosphere is heated by about the same amount
from above and from below, and is highly convective.
20 The Solar System, the planets and their atmospheres

Most of Saturn's satellites lie in the same plane as the rings, the
planet's equatorial plane, and orbit outside the rings. Most of the mass
of the satellite and ring system is concentrated in Titan, which is the
second-largest satellite in the Solar System after Jupiter's Ganymede.
Titan is the only moon to possess a thick atmosphere and is therefore
of especial inter�st (§1 .4) .

1 .3.3 Uranus a n d Neptune

Uranus (Fig. 1 . 1 6) and Neptune (Fig. 1 . 17) are similar in size to each
other, with radii about four times larger than Earth, and masses that
are 1 4 and 1 7 times greater (which makes them just 5% and 6%,
respectively, of the mass of Jupiter). Whereas Jupiter and Saturn are
composed primarily of hydrogen and helium, the total mass of carbon,
nitrogen, oxygen, and possibly silicon, iron, and other heavy elements,
must be comparable to or greater than that of the light gases in Uranus
and Neptune. For this reason, they have come to be called 'ice giants'
rather than gas giants like their larger siblings, where ice means any
condensed compound and not just frozen H20.
All of the giant planets are fluid to a great depth and can contract to
release internal energy as heat. However, when all four are compared, we
see that they do not follow a consistent pattern. The heat radiated from
Uranus, in particular, apparently does not significantly exceed that

• First ice giant

• Mass 1 4.5 x Earth
Fig. 1 .1 6
• Radious 4 x Earth
General appearance and defining char­ • Density 0.23 x Earth
acteristics of Uranus. In this view the
contrast has been stretched to show the • Atmosphere H 4 + He

tenuous ring system and faint cloud fea­

tures in the atmosphere. It can then be
• -2% methane CH4
seen how Uranus' axis of rotation is • Temp. 79 K at 1 bar
tipped close to the ecliptic plane, which
is nearly horizontal in this view.

• Second ice giant

• Mass 1 7. 1 x Earth

• Radius 4 x Earth

• Density 0.32 x Earth

• Atmosphere H2 + He
Fig. 1.17
General appearance and defining char­ • -2% methane CH 4

• Temp. 70 K at 1 bar
acteristics of Neptune. The bright cloud
features are probably frozen methane.
 The outer planets 21

Table 1 .3. Data relevant to climate on the four bodies with non-Earth-like atmospheres, the
gas giants of the outer Solar System. The atmospheric composition is given as mole fractions.

Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune

Distance from Sun (km) 7.78 x l08 1 .43 X 1 09 2.87 X 1 09 4.50 X 1 09

Eccentricity 0.0489 0.0565 0.0457 0.01 1 3
Obliquity (deg) 3.13 26.73 97.77 28.32
Orbital period (years) 1 1 .857 29.42 84.01 1 64.79
Solar day (hours) 9.92 1 0.65 17.24 1 6. 1 1
Solar constant (W m - 2) 50.5 14.9 3.71 1.51
Bond albedo 0.343 0.342 0.30 0.29
Total energy output Solar energy input 1 .67 1 .78 1 .06 2.52
Atmospheric:
Molecular weight (g) 2.22 2.07 2.64 2.6
Temperature at 1 bar (K) 165 1 34 76 72
Scale height (km) 27 59. 5 27.7 20
Composition:
Hydrogen 0.898 0.936 0.825 0.80
Helium 0. 1 02 0.325 0. 1 52 0. 1 9
Methane 0.003 0.0045 0.023 0.015
Ammonia 0.000 26 0.000 1 25 ? ?

which it receives from the Sun, while its more distant twin Neptune has a
substantial internal source, like Jupiter and Saturn (Table 1 .3). When the
magnitudes of these sources are compared to each other and to the mass
of each planet, it becomes clear that the simple 'contraction' model
described above and in §4.6 for Jupiter cannot fit all of them without
modification. What is probably happening is internal gravitational sep­
aration of specific species, again releasing potential energy as heat, rather
than just an overall shrinking of the whole planet. For Saturn, which
actually radiates more energy than Jupiter, despite being smaller, it has
been suggested that the pressure and temperature at certain depths are
particularly suitable for the formation of drops of liquid helium, which
then 'rain' out towards the centre. What accounts for the difference
between Uranus and Neptune is still not known, although a number of
speculative models have been developed.
Uranus' rotation is peculiar in that its axis is tilted 98° to the
perpendicular to its orbital plane - that is, it lies almost on its side -
and has retrograde rotation. The spin axis can point almost directly at
the Sun, so regions near the poles spend half of the long orbit alter­
nately in sunlight or darkness. The effect this has on the structure and
global circulation of the atmosphere, compared to its similarly sized
but more normally aligned neighbour Neptune, is difficult to know at
present because there are so few relevant observations. What we do
know comes mainly from the Voyager 2 spacecraft, which observed
Uranus at a time when the south pole was pointed almost directly at
the Sun. Perhaps surprisingly, the measured temperatures near the
cloud tops were not very different between the illuminated and dark
polar regions, and the cloud patterns suggested zonal east-west winds
similar to those on the other three giant planets.
22 The Solar System/ the planets a n d their atmospheres

Neptune's orbital period is almost 1 65 years and it has not quite

completed an orbit of the Sun since its discovery in 1 846. It has one
large satellite, Triton (27 1 0 km in diameter), which is in an odd retro­
grade orbit with an inclination of 1 59°. This suggests that Triton was a
drifting object in the Kuiper belt before it was captured by Neptune,
which is remarkitble in view of its size. Neptune itself has an axial
inclination of 29°, not very different from Earth's 23 . 5°.
The visible atmosphere of Uranus is almost featureless and is green­
blue in colour. Occasional discrete faint white clouds are observed at
midlatitudes and there is a layer of high haze, presumably photoche­
mically produced, over the sunlit south pole. Neptune is much bluer
than Uranus and has more pronounced features, including the streaky,
bright white clouds that appear at all latitudes, and dark oval features
reminiscent of those on Jupiter. The difference in colour between
Uranus and Neptune at visible wavelengths is due mainly to the
different path lengths of methane in each atmosphere, varying opacity
in the weak methane absorption bands at the red end of the visible
spectrum.
Although Neptune receives less sunlight than Uranus, it appears to
radiate about the same amount of infrared energy, and to have tem­
peratures in the upper atmosphere that are very similar. The minimum

20 Ignoring condensation effects, the dry

temperature at the tropopause is about 5 5 K on both planets, increas­
2
ing with depth along an adiabat. 0 Both have relatively warm upper

Chapter 5) for Uranus is 0.68 K km-1

adiabatic temperature profile g/CP (see atmospheres due to absorption of sunlight by hydrocarbons and hazes,
and, for Neptune, 0.85 K km-1•
but more distant Neptune is actually warmer by as much as 40 K,
presumably due to a higher concentration of absorber. The atmo­
spheres of both planets are cold enough for white clouds of methane
ice to form near the 1 bar level, with extensive polar hazes above and a
main cloud deck at approximately 3 bars below. The composition of
the latter is uncertain; microwave observations show that water con­
denses well below this level, as would be expected from the temperature
profile. They also show both atmospheres to be severely depleted in
ammonia, which would otherwise have been a candidate for forming a
substantial condensate cloud at the observed pressure level. This leaves
hydrogen sulphide, H2S, as the most reasonable guess for the compos­
ition of the main cloud decks on Uranus and Neptune, although this
has still to be confirmed.
The 'missing' ammonia in the atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune
is probably a consequence of radically different interior structures
compared to Jupiter and Saturn. Somewhere in each planet there has
to be a high concentration of ammonia, or of nitrogen in some other
form, since it is unlikely that large objects like Uranus and Neptune
could have accreted without acquiring at least approximately cosmo­
gonic proportions of such a common element. In models of their
interiors, the pressures and temperatures inside the smaller giant
planets are not high enough for hydrogen to become metallic; instead,
a conducting mantle of water containing ammonia and other impur­
ities forms around the roughly Earth-sized rocky core at the centre of
each planet. It is probably here that their magnetic fields are generated.
 Titan : a satellite with a n atmosphere and a climate 23

1 .4 Titan: a satellite with an atmosphere and a climate

Titan (Fig. 1 . 1 8) is Saturn's biggest moon and is larger than the planet
Mercury. Although Jupiter's moon Ganymede has a slightly greater
diameter, Titan looks bigger when measured optically because it is
surrounded by an extensive and cloudy atmosphere, while Ganymede
has none. Titan's atmosphere is predominantly composed of nitrogen,
like Earth's, but with a higher surface pressure, despite the significantly
lower gravity. Why this satellite should be endowed with a thick
atmosphere while that on larger, volatile-rich Mars is so much less,
and the similarly sized Jovian satellites Ganymede and Callisto are
essentially airless, is a mystery. The answer must involve the low
temperature at Saturn's distance from the Sun, and Titan's relatively
large distance from its parent, in the early days of the formation of the
planetary system.
The nitrogen on Titan probably started out as ammonia (NH3),
which is easily photochemically dissociated followed by the escape to
space of most of the hydrogen. Today, N2 forms about 95% of the
atmosphere. The remainder is mostly methane, CH4, which is also
subjected to dissociation by solar ultraviolet radiation and energetic
particles from Saturn's radiation belts, the Sun, and cosmic rays. There
has to be a source of methane on Titan to explain its continued
presence, because at the present rate of destruction it would all vanish
in only about one million years. Titan has a low mean density
( 1 . 88 g cm- 3) so the interior must contain a lot of ice. Some of this
would be expected to be frozen methane and ammonia, along with
water and other ices. At the high pressures in the interior, and assisted
by small amounts of radioactive and tidal heating, the methane could
vaporise and escape though cracks and vents in the crust. The Cassini
spacecraft in orbit around Saturn has obtained some visual evidence
for these 'cryovolcanoes' during close passes over Titan.
The decomposing methane in the upper atmosphere is likely to be
the main source of the thick layer of orange haze that dominates the
visual appearance of Titan. Although its detailed composition is still
not known, despite the attentions of several instruments on the Cassini
Saturn arbiter and the Huygens Titan probe, it apparently consists of
drops of oily hydrocarbons, produced by a chain of reactions that start

• N 2 atmosphere, 5% CH4
• Surface pressure 1 .6 bar
• Surface temperature 95 K
• Photochemical
hydrocarbon haze
• Methane cumulus clouds
• Organic drizzle, CH4 rain
Fig. 1 . 1 8
• Surface run-off, lakes General appearance and defining char­
acteristics of the atmosphere of Titan.
24 The Solar System, the planets and their atmospheres

with the dissociation of methane and nitrogen by solar ultraviolet

photons. The ethane, acetylene, ethylene, hydrogen cyanide and
other trace constituents that have been detected spectroscopically in
the atmosphere are part of this process. As larger and larger molecules
are synthesised, condensation occurs, forming aerosol particles that
can grow by co�alescence. Model calculations of the haze formation
predict production 'and growth rates that are quite rapid and also
irreversible, so eventually large droplets drizzle onto the surface to
form tarry deposits of condensable hydrocarbons and nitriles .
Ultraviolet photons tend not to penetrate t o the lowest 50 k m o r s o of
the atmosphere, so photochemistry here is less important and temperat­
ures are lower. There, even relatively simple molecules like methane and
ethane can also condense, their high abundances resulting in dense white
stratus and cumulus-type clouds in favourable situations, such as strong
moist updrafts. Spectacular weather systems marked by clusters of these
bright condensate clouds occur sporadically at various preferred loca­
tions and seasons on Titan, and some of them apparently release mon­
soon-type rains, to judge by the appearance of extensive channels and
other fluvial features on the surface. Most of the channels and basins are
dry most of the time, so the liquid soon evaporates or soaks into the
surface, but some extensive lakes have been found as well.
Titan's surface temperature is about - 1 78 o c (95 K). Other statistics
are given in Figure 1 . 19 and in Table 1 .4.
Two other satellites, Io (Jupiter) and Triton (Neptune), have thin,
transient atmospheres fuelled by volcanoes, expelling mainly sulphur
dioxide and hydrogen sulphide on Io, and nitrogen on Triton. The
volcanoes are driven by tidal heating of the interior of the body in both

. · .· . . '·. . · . .. . .
.
..
' ·stratos pheric
. ·· : .

.. (hydrocarbons)
:.; ·· · · ... . ..:·: ::
>: .. .
40
:.
. · ·· ·.•.
.

TITAN EARTH

E
30
6
�

.E
Ol

_·::
. '
'(i)
I 20
t
stra osp heric·. ·._ . :

.:: ,..
aerosol ·

Fig. 1 . 1 9 '
.
Titan's atmosphere compared to Earth.
.

The relatively low temperatures on Titan 10

are of course due primarily to its tenfold
greater distance from the Sun. The rela­
tively small lapse rate results from Ti­
tan's low gravity (about one-seventh of

50 1 00 1 50 200 250 300

Earth). However, the surface pressure is
nearly the same for both (actually 50%
higher on Titan than on Earth). Temperature (K)
 Comparative climatology 25

Table 1.4 Data on Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. Except for the low temperature, the
climate at the surface is Earth-like, even featuring clouds and rain.

Mass 1 .35 X 1 023 kg (0.0226 X Earth)

Equatorial radius 2575 km (0.40 x Earth)
3
Mean density 1 .88 g cm -
Mean distance from Saturn 6
1.22 x 1 0 km
Rotational period 1 5.94 days
Orbital period 1 5.94 days
Orbital eccentricity 0.029
Orbital inclination 0.33°
Atmospheric bulk composition 95% N2, 5% CH4
Mean surface temperature 95 K
Surface atmospheric pressure 1 .467 bars

cases, rather than by primordial and radioactive heat as with the 21 Tidal heating occurs when the solid
2
Earth. 1 planet or moon is flexed by gravitational
forces acting unequally on different
parts of its mass, for instance, if its
1 .5 Comparative climatology orbit is eccentric, or regularly perturbed
by a third object nearby.
In the last four decades, we have experienced the first close-up explor­
ation of the planets of the Solar System. American, Russian, and (in­
creasingly) European planetary space missions have now explored the
atmospheres and environments of all of the planets, some many times. As
never before, the data produced places the Earth in its wider context,
among the terrestrial planets of the Solar System. Common aspects are
revealed, not only of their contemporaneous origin and evolution, but
also of their atmospheric structure and surface conditions.
Comparative planetary climatology is still a young discipline, lim­
ited by many unknowns, but capable of producing useful first-order
insights, and listing key questions that can be addressed by anticipated
new measurements. Progress is driven, not only by scientific interest in
planetary-scale phenomena and the common evolutionary history of
the planetary system, but also by concern about climate change on the
Earth, and a consequent interest in all aspects of climate physics.
Comparative planetary climatology addresses the physical processes
that determine
• current environmental conditions on Earth-like planets,
• the stability in each case against climate change,
• the development of models to simulate past and future climate,

• new experiments to further investigate these and improve the models.

By comparing the effects of similar processes at work on Mars, Venus

and Titan to those on our own planet, we may gain a deeper under­
standing of global change on the Earth, the origin and evolution over
the long term of an habitable world, and the realities behind threats
such as greenhouse warming. To do this we construct models which
give a description of the state of the climate for all four of the terrestrial
planet atmospheres in terms of simple physics. These can be tested and
26 The Sola r Syste m , the planets and their atmospheres

refined using measurements, and then employed to study, and eventu­

ally to answer, questions of climate stability and change, such as:
• What do the climate systems on all four planets have in common?
• How stable are their current climates, and what controls their stability?
• What change has taken place, why, and on what timescale?
• Can we make plau,sible predictions of future change?
Venus, Earth and Mars all have in common greenhouse warming by
C02, H20 and other gases, plus clouds and aerosols, which enhances
the surface temperature considerably in each case. On Mars, there is
dramatic evidence of past climate change; this, too, has analogous
behaviour on the Earth, probably on Venus, and perhaps also on
Titan, the large satellite of Saturn, which has one of the most Earth­
like atmospheres yet discovered. In particular, Titan's surface pressure
is the closest to Earth's of any known planet, and its atmospheric
composition has the same main constituent, molecular nitrogen.
Current thinking about the data obtained to date suggests that
Mars, Venus and Earth were all more similar to each other when
they formed than they are today. It is likely that all three had enough
water to form substantial oceans, strong internally generated magnetic
fidds, and active volcanism on a scale sufficient to create and maintain
thick atmospheres. But to what extent were they really the same?
Obviously, distance from the Sun is one variable that must have
made a difference and been a factor in the disappearance of the oceans
on Venus and Mars. The dominant mechanisms of loss may have been
the same, but scaled by solar distance and other factors (size, in the
case of Mars) to produce different evolutionary paths leading to the
present diversity. For instance, it seems likely that most of the water on
Venus was lost to space, while that on Mars was frozen below the
surface. Venus may never have had liquid water on its surface. If, as
seems likely, the surface of the planet was always very hot, its ' ocean'
could have outgassed from the interior and resided in the atmosphere
as vapour, until it dissociated and escaped without ever condensing.
Measurements of ordinary and heavy water vapour abundances
have provided D/H ratios and other evidence that can be used to
measure loss rates and extrapolate back over time. Differences and
changes in magnetic fields with time can, in principle, be simulated
with computer models of planetary interiors, although in practice this
is proving a challenge. The actual effect of a magnetic field on atmos­
pheric erosion by the solar wind also remains controversial, although
progress is being made.
All of this is discussed further in later chapters. The methodology
may be summarised as:
• Uncover the common origin of the Solar System and planets
• Identify their divergent evolutionary paths
• Explain current similarities and differences
• Define the mysteries that remain and make plans to address them
through new experiments.
 Com parative climatology 27

While this approach is, initially at least, most fruitfully applied to those
planets nearest to the Earth in size and behaviour, we should not
overlook less-likely siblings such as Mercury and the Moon. Mercury,
which in terms of its geology and place in the inner Solar System is
undoubtedly a terrestrial planet, has an atmosphere that is so thin that
it more resembles the terrestrial exosphere. This tenuous region, on the
fringe of space, has a long-term relationship to the climate at the
Earth's surface through the atmospheric escape processes that occur
there. However, the investigation of thick polar deposits on Mercury,
apparently of water ice, is likely to yield answers that will lead to a
better understanding of the origin of water on all the planets.
Likewise, the deep, hydrogen atmospheres of the gas giants Jupiter,
Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, although the seat of fascinating dynam­
ical behaviour and holding many clues about the f01mation of the Sun
and planets, are not simple analogues for the Earth's climate system in
any obvious way. Yet even here we find points of fruitful comparison.
One example is the vertical temperature profiles: despite the great
depth of the outer planet atmospheres, and the existence of internal
sources of heat that match or in some cases exceed heating by the Sun,
we find that the atmospheric vertical temperature profiles tend to take
on the same overall character as those of Earth, Mars and Venus. In
particular, they all have a troposphere characterised by an adiabatic
lapse rate, overlaid by a quasi-isothermal stratosphere. These are
expected on theoretical grounds when the dominant mode of vertical
heat transfer is by convection at depth and by radiation above some
level where radiative cooling to space becomes important (see Chapter
5). Radiative transfer theory, accompanied by knowledge of the com­
position of the atmosphere (including the most important infrared
absorbers and emitters, which may be present in quite small propor­
tions) and the properties of the cloud layers, should in principle allow
all of the atmospheres of the Solar System to be reconciled, in terms of
explaining their temperature structure. This is generally what we find,
although many details remain to be worked out.
Progress in understanding these and other climate-related questions
on all of the planets, including Earth, comes mainly from space mis­
sions. For instance, more than 30 spacecraft have visited Venus alone,
and many more will be required before a clear picture emerges of even
this, the closest and most Earth-like body in the Solar System. The
climate system of a planet involves many interacting processes and
feedbacks, so the interpretation of most of the data requires the use of
models. When dealing with planets other than Earth, these models are
necessarily quite simple, since, despite recent progress and new mis­
sions to Mars, Venus and Titan, our knowledge of these bodies and
their atmospheres is still relatively scanty.
A goal of model studies is not just to understand the data we already
have, but also, crucially, to help define what else can be done that will
substantially increase, not just our knowledge, but also our under­
standing. Given the high cost and relative infrequency of missions to
any particular planet, this is not just a scientific question; new tech­
nology, or a specific large and difficult mission may be called for. This
28 The Solar Syste m , the planets and their atmospheres

could involve the return of atmospheric, surface or deep-drilled core

samples, or even human exploration on the surface of Mars (and,
eventually, Venus and Titan). Before embarking on such as these, we
have to be sure we have understood the problems we are trying to solve
with existing data, to the maximum extent possible. Then we have to
set realistic, convincing and economical goals. It is easy for this fairly
self-evident phil�sophy to be overlooked, as in the current drive to
mount missions to look for life on Europa, one of the large moons of
Jupiter. While there does exist a high probability that Europa is home
to a liquid water ocean, below several kilometres of icy crust that it
exposes to space, the difficulties of exploring beneath the ice are
enormous, while the chances of finding anything but dirty water
must be extremely small.
What are the top priorities for future space missions? No two
leading researchers would give the same answer, but here are some
candidates that would be on most lists.
For Mars, a pressing issue is to trace the origins of the methane that has
been detected in the atmosphere. If, as expected, this is associated with
hydrothermal vents, where warm, liquid water is also to be found just
below the surface, then this represents the long-sought opportunity to find
life, or answer the question of whether Mars is now, or ever was, habitable
by microorganisms recognisable to terrestrial biologists. In what ways will
they differ, and why? Sophisticated robots equipped with drills and
analytical laboratories - and deployed in the right place - will probably
answer these questions before the first human explorers arrive.
The search to discover the nature and extent of volcanic activity on
Venus is already underway, but requires new approaches to make
major progress. Navigable floating stations ('submarines') in the
deep, dense atmosphere will survey the terrain and measure the gas­
eous emissions in volcanic plumes. They will have to survive high
temperatures and pressures, requiring a new generation of electronic
devices that likes to run hotter than our current computers and power
supplies. Measurements made in situ of noble gases and samples from
the surface and below will provide geological evidence for past cli­
mates, but again are difficult to collect and mostly belong in some
future epoch of exploration just over the horizon. No one talks ser­
iously of a search for life on Venus, although some have suggested
microbes may survive happily in the clouds, where the temperatures
are equitable and there is plenty of water and energy, but it may make
sense to ask whether Venus was habitable in the distant past.
In the shorter term, an equally exciting if slightly less exotic goal
would be to develop integrated climate models for Venus, Earth and
Mars. A single, very large general-circulation model, with all relevant
physics included, must be able to simulate the present-day climate of
all three planets if it is correctly formulated. Then, never entirely
reliably but at least on a firm foundation, experiments to 'hindcast'
the past climates and forecast the future would also stand to be
optimised, as represented in Figure 1 .20. Unfortunately for the inhab­
itants, the Earth is running a climate-change experiment on such a
short timescale that understanding threatens to come too late.
 References and further reading 29

SPACE ENVIRONMENT
Solar UV flux, solar wind, magnetic field

ATMOSPHERE
Radiation, chemistry dynamics

Mars
Earth's
Past Future
Climate
Venus
Fig. 1 .20

SURFACE A summary of the key processes con­

Topography, mineralogy, volcanism trolling climate on the Earth, and their
principal interactions in the vertical di­
mension. The other key dimensions are
time, relating the current climate to the
past, and space, relating the Earth to its
INTERIOR neighbours Venus and Mars, and po­
Composition, core, dynamics tentially to other Earth-like planets else-
'
where in the universe.

1 .6 References and further reading

Recommended introductory reading for the exploration and general proper­
ties of the planets and their atmospheres may be found in the following:
Coustenis, A., and F.W. Taylor. Titan: Exploring an Earthlike World. World
Scientific Publishing, 2008.
Grinspoon, D.H. Venus Revealed: A New Look Below the Clouds of our
Mysterious Twin Planet. Addison-Wesley, 1997.
Irwin, P.G. Giant Planets ofour Solar System: An Introduction. Springer, 2006.
Read, P.L., and S.R. Lewis. The Martian Climate Revisited: A tmosphere and
Environment of a Desert Planet. Springer-Praxis, 2004.
Schofield, J.T., and F.W. Taylor. Measurements of the mean solar-fixed
temperature and cloud structure of the middle atmosphere of Venus. Q.
J. Roy. Meteorol. Soc., 109, 57-80, 1983.
Taylor, F.W., C.D. Rodgers, J.G. Whitney, S .T. Werrett, J.J. Barnett, G.D.
Peskett, P. Venters, J. Ballard, C.W.P. Palmer, R.J. Knight, P. Morris, T.
Nightingale, and A. Dudhia. Remote sensing of atmospheric structure and
composition by pressure modulator radiometry from space: The ISAMS
experiment on UARS. J. Geophys. Res., 98, 10 799-1 0 8 14, 1 993.

atmosphere of Venus. pp. 325-3 5 1 , in Venus 2, ed. by S.W. Bougher, D.M.

Taylor, F.W., D. Crisp, and B . Bezard. Near-infrared sounding of the lower

Hunten, and R.J. Phillips, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ, 1997.
Taylor, F.W. The Scientific Exploration ofMars. Cambridge University Press,
2009.
Orig in and evolution of
planetary atmospheres

The present climates on all of the planets are the result of a multi-stage
process, which began when the protosolar cloud formed out of a
concentration of interstellar gas and dust and then collapsed under
gravity to form the Sun. Most, but not all of the mass of the cloud
ended up in the young star, the remainder forming a flat disc of
orbiting material in which most of the angular momentum of the
system resided. The disc in turn aggregated into progressively larger
bodies, which eventually formed the planetary system that we see
today.
The planetary masses closest to the star were composed mainly of
rocky and metallic material, but included gas and volatiles trapped in
their interiors that gradually escaped and formed their modem atmo­
spheres. In the outer Solar System, temperatures were low and ice
accreted along with metal and rock, forming massive planets that
were able to trap protosolar material, including large amounts of
hydrogen and helium that the smaller, hotter inner planets could not
retain.

2. 1 The origin of the Solar System

Any theory of planetary formation that is more detailed than the bare
outline given above must seek to explain why our own planetary
system has the contents (Table 2 . 1 ) and properties (Table 2.2) that it
does. It must also account for the variations on that familiar theme
being discovered elsewhere in the Universe. These variations have long
been known to include multiple stars, and are recently found to include
enormous planets orbiting very rapidly, very close to their respective
suns. Systems that include Earth-like planets are harder to detect, but
it seems certain that these will be revealed in the next few decades by
advanced methods and instruments now being planned. Meanwhile,
we have to work mainly with what we know about our own planetary
system.
In addition to the inventory listed in Table 2. 1 , we have the basic
properties summarised in Table 2.2 which must be explained by some
plausible and probable mechanism that can be modelled using known
physics. The question of the origin of the Solar System, and its evolution
 Planetary system formation theories 31

Table 2.1 The main contents of the Solar System, and the fraction each contributes to the
total mass. In the case of comets (defined here to include all small icy bodies, i.e., Kuiper belt
and Oort cloud objects) the total mass is very uncertain. Similarly, the total number of
asteroids (small rocky bodies, most of which are in the belt between Mars and Jupiter) is not
known very well, but their combined mass is certainly less than that of Earth's Moon.

1 star (99.85% of the Solar System by mass)

8 planets (0. 1 3 5%)
4 planetary ring systems (cvO)
cv60 natural satellites (0.000 05%)
cv6000 asteroids (cvO)
cv 1 0 12 comets (0.01 5%?)
interplanetary gas and dust (cvO)

Table 2.2 Key properties of the Solar System. The 'heavy' elements referred to in item (8)
mean anything heavier than helium. The variation is large: from 3 x solar abundance for
Jupiter to cv40 X solar for Neptune.

1. Planetary orbits are all in nearly the same plane

2. Planetary orbits are nearly circular
3. Planets orbit the Sun in the same sense
4. Planets spin in the same sense as their orbits (but not Uranus or Venus)
5. Angular momentum of Sun small compared to planets
6. Two families of planets, rocky near the Sun, gas giants far from Sun
7. Atmospheric compositions and isotopic ratios are different

22 This is usually known as Bode's law,

8. Heavy elements in the giant planets are more abundant with distance
9. Orbital radius increases with distance as 4 + n, where n =0, 3, 6, 12, . . .22
10. Existence of satellite families, Kuiper belt, Oort cloud, comets, etc. after German astronomer Johann Bode,
who published this empirical law in
1766. Bode attributed it to work by
Johann Titus two years earlier, although
to its present state, is one that has held the attention of many major the latter may have taken it from
figures in science at various times (Newton, Laplace, Fourier, Gauss, David Gregory's book, The Elements of
Kelvin, Helmholtz, Poincare, Maxwell, and Einstein, to name but a few). Astronomy, published in 1 7 1 5. The law is
Because some ofthe larger questions, not to mention many ofthe details, good to within a few per cent for all
remain unresolved (not least because of the recent first indications of the planets except Neptune, for which it
predicts 30. 1 AU when the true value
nature of extrasolar planetary systems mentioned above), it is instructive is 38.8 AU. Its theoretical basis is still
to consider how the subject has evolved over time. debated.

2.2 Planetary system formation theories

There are two main types of planetary system formation theories:

• those that invoke an infrequent, catastrophic event, such as a near
collision between the Sun and another star, and
• those that involve natural processes such as might occur at the birth
of any star without external intervention.
Both theories have had distinguished advocates over the centuries, and
b oth sides pointed out that if we knew the answer it would have
profound implications for the number of planetary systems likely to
exist in the universe. Progress in modelling and observations, particu­
larly the discovery that extrasolar planetary systems appear to be
common, has swung opinion decisively towards non-catastrophic
models in recent years.
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Deák Ferencz

és családja (2. kötet)

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Deák Ferencz és családja (2. kötet)

Author: Károly Eötvös

Release date: January 21, 2021 [eBook #64357]

Language: Hungarian

Credits: Albert László from page images generously made available

by the Google Books Library Project

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEÁK FERENCZ

ÉS CSALÁDJA (2. KÖTET) ***
 Megjegyzés:
A tartalomjegyzék a 311. oldalon található.
 Eötvös Károly Munkái
xiv. kötet

DEÁK FERENCZ ÉS CSALÁDJA

II

Eötvös Károly Munkái

XIV.

DEÁK FERENCZ ÉS CSALÁDJA

MÁSODIK KÖTET

BUDAPEST MDCCCCV
VIII., ÜLLŐI-ÚT 18. SZÁM.

RÉVAI TESTVÉREK
IRODALMI INTÉZET R.-T.
 Eötvös Károly

DEÁK FERENCZ ÉS CSALÁDJA

MÁSODIK KÖTET

BUDAPEST MDCCCCV
VIII., ÜLLŐI-ÚT 18. SZÁM.

RÉVAI TESTVÉREK
IRODALMI INTÉZET R.-T.

AZ ÖSSZES JOGOK FENTARTÁSÁVAL.

Révai és Salamon könyvnyomdája Budapest, VIII. ker., Üllői-út 18.

szám.
 PUSZTA-SZENT-LÁSZLÓN.

I.

(Utam Puszta-Szent-Lászlóra. – A Deák-lakta szobák. – Deák gesztenyefái.

– A bükkös. – A hangyák utja. – A Katiczabogár konoksága.)

Meg kellett látnom Puszta-Szent-Lászlót is.

Tizenhat éven át itt töltötte Deák Ferencz az esztendő nagy
részét. 1855-től 1870-ig itt lakott rendesen májustól novemberig.
Csak öt-hat héten át volt távol, a mikor egyik-másik cseh fürdőben
unatkozott orvosai tanácsára vagy a mikor Balaton-Füred árnyékos
ligeteiben és sétálóin adomázott. A tizenhat év közül tizenkettőben
ezt cselekedte.
Itt Puszta-Szent-Lászlón lakott a legjobb barát s a legédesebb
testvér, a kik valaha éltek a világon s a kiket Deák Ferencz egész
életén át legjobban szeretett. Ifju korától kezdve a halálig. Minő
barátság volt az, mely a két Deák-testvér és Oszterhuber József közt
az angyallelkü Deák Klára oldalán egész emberéleten át fennállott!
Ha én vagy más e barátság igaz történetét egyszer igazán
megirhatná! Nem hinné el senki. Az utódok kora hidegen
gondolkozik, csöndesen érez. Azt mondaná: ábrándos költő
csapongó képzelete szőtte-fonta a gyönyörü mesét.
A puszta-szent-lászlói urilak kis szobáiban, gazdagon teritett
asztala mellett, hires vadgesztenyefái alatt s bükkös erdejének
árnyékában érett meg gyakran a magyar nemzet sorsa s fordult
jobbra nem egyszer szomoru végzete. Hires kormányzók, nagy
államférfiak, lángoló lelkek s hű barátok, császár követei itt keresték
fel, itt rajzották körül a haza bölcsét. Egyetlen vár, kastély, urilak
nincs ebben az országban, a hol, bár csöndesen, némán, ugy készült
volna Magyarország története, mint a puszta-szent-lászlói urilakban.
Föl kellett hát ezt is keresnem.
A nap leszállt már, a mikor a pölöskei erdő hatalmas bükköséből a
Valicka-patak völgyére leszálltunk. De még világos volt. Bakot és
tornyát még tisztán láttuk, a mikor a söjtöri uton dél felé
lekanyarodtunk. A nyárnak utolsó napjait élveztük. Szeptember
közepe. De az erdőnek és a mezőnek, a szénának és a sarjunak édes
illatával tele volt még az alkonyat levegője. Repült a négy ló a kocsi
előtt, de mégis sötét lett, mire Söjtörre értünk, Deák Ferencz
születése helyére. S ugy mentünk keresztül a hosszu falun, hogy a
szülőházat, a Deák-család egyik ősi urilakát ez este meg se láthattuk.
Fönt a dombon, magas fák árnyékában eltévesztettük szemünk elől.
Még rövid negyedóra s oda értünk Puszta-Szent-László északi
faluvégére. Egyikünk se járt még ott, kérdezősködnünk kellett.
Találtunk is az utczán hozzávaló embert.
– Hol fekszik a Tarányi-kastély, atyafi?
– Tessék csak előremenni, majd meglátják az urak, sok tornya
van.
Meg is láttuk, noha nincs sok tornya, sőt egy tornya sincs. Hanem
az épület sarkain csakugyan vannak apró toronyalaku diszitések.
Göcseji embernél ezek is toronyszámba jönnek.
A kapu nyitva, a jó négy ló beugrik az udvarra s megáll az
előszoba ajtaja előtt. Valami kulcsárnő, valami gazdaszony, valami
szolgálóféle s valami udvaros jönnek hozzánk nagy kiváncsisággal.
Vajjon ki lehet a vendég? Hiszen az uraságok nincsenek itt!
Még nem tudták, hogy jövünk.
 Az uraság nem mozdulhatott ki a nyirlaki hitbizományi kastélyból.
Az ifju uraság hadgyakorlatra vonult be Csehországba. Nyirlak
messze van Puszta-Szent-Lászlóhoz, egy vadászt szolgálattételre s
egy jó szakácsnét és szobalányt küldött ugyan fogadásunkra az én
nemes barátom, Tarányi Ferencz előre, de bizony azok nagy
kényelmesen koczogtak, mig a mi négy lovunk sárkányok módjára
repült. Csak később félóra mulva érkezett meg a szolgáló
személyzet.
Mindegy. Az asztalon gazdag teriték várt s kitünő szobák és
ágyak. Az épület tervrajzát még ez estén papirosra jegyezgettem.
Legjobban érdeklődtem ama helyiségek iránt, melyeket Deák
Ferencz szokott használni. A nagy tekéző szoba, mely egyuttal
társalgó és pipázó és tanácskozó szoba volt és hálószobája.
A nagy tekéző szoba most is meg van. Benne a tekéző asztal,
melyen Deák Ferencz is szokott játszadozni. Megvan a nagy fekete
bőrpamlag is s néhány karosszék Deák Klára urasszony idejéből. Egy
sarokban néhány darab bot, melynek fogantékjára a haza bölcse
faragott apró szoboralakokat.
Deák hálószobája a kastély délnyugati sarkán kisded sarokszoba.
Egy ablaka az urasági kápolnára, nyugat felé, másik ablaka a hires
vadgesztenyefákra néz dél felé. Az ágy is azon a helyen, a hol
harminczhárom éve volt, a mikor Deák utoljára fordult meg e helyen.
Kis ruhaszekrényének csak helye van meg, melyet maga vitetett oda
Pestről. A szekrény ma a nyirlaki kastély egyik ereklyéje.
Estebéd után az volt a kérdés közöttünk, ki melyik szobát foglalja
el alvásra. Nekem Deák Ferencz szobáját és ágyát jelölték ki. Nem
fogadtam el. Ugy gondoltam, nem tudok elaludni hajnalig vagy
reggelig, mámoros lenni pedig másnap nem akartam. Szinte
bizonyosra vettem, hogy a Deák Ferencz élete, egyénisége, kora,
cselekményei fölött való tünődés az első éjszaka elver szememből
minden álmot s alvási képességet.
Gyönyörü reggelre virradtunk.
 Első gondunk volt a gesztenyefák megtekintése.
Négy hatalmas vadgesztenyefa a kapubejárattól jobbkézre.
Teljesen kilátszik az utczára is. A járó-kelők jól láthatják a mindig
nyitott kapun s az alacsony kőkeritésen át. Meg is nézik. A
vármegyében minden régi ember s a faluban minden öreg és ifju,
sőt gyermek is tudja s mondogatja:
– Ime, Deák Ferencz gesztenyefái!
Most is haragos zöld sürü lombja minden fának, pedig
szeptember közepén vagyunk. A szokottnál magasabb sudár szálu
fák messze oldalra nyuló ágakkal és lombozattal.
Mily idősek ezek a fák?
Biztosat mondani senki sem tud. Még a 80 éves öreg nyugdijas
ispán Szabó Antal uram se, a ki pedig negyvenhárom év előtt, 1861-
ben, került az uradalomba. Már akkor is megvoltak, noha nem oly
magasak és terebélyesek.
Az idős vadgesztenyefák életkorát nem tudom biztosan megitélni.
Az én falumban kevés van. Apám egész életében ültetgette, de nem
boldogult vele. Ugy látom, a hüvösebb s talán márgásabb talajt
jobban szereti, mint az én birtokom talaját s forró nyarát.
Gyermekkoromban tehát nem figyelhettem meg évenkénti növését.
De némi tájékozásunk mégis lehet Deák Ferencz fáinak életkora
iránt.
A kastély 1833-ban épült, most tehát hetvenegy éves. A fák nem
gyökérről nőtt csiatagok, hanem szabályosan ültetvék. Egymásközti
helyzetük ezt bizonyitja. A kastély épitése előtt ez a hely gazdasági
udvar volt, korábban tehát alig ültethették. Hanem 1833-ban vagy
1834-ben.
Kérdeztem, hol a fa-zsöllyeszékek s hol a karos fapad, melyet
Deák Ferencz szokott használni.
 A felelet az volt: az urasági kápolnában vannak Deák ereklyéi
gyanánt elhelyezve.
– Ki kell hozni s régi helyükre állitani!
Futottak azonnal s régi helyükre állitották.
Kezdetleges, falusi, durva alaku és faragásu készségek. Bizony
nem igaz az, hogy ezeket Deák Ferencz furta, faragta, állitotta össze.
Még csak czéhbeli ács és asztalos se. Hanem csak közönséges
faragó béres.
De hát igy is jó volt. Hiszen szélben, esőben, télen és nyáron ott
kellett ezeknek a fák alatt szabadban állani. Holmi finomabb
munkáju fényezett butordarab huszszor is elpusztult volna félszázad
alatt. De ezeken is ugyancsak meglátszik a kornak és korhadásnak
minden nyoma. Pedig több mint harmincz év óta már a templomban
állanak.
Az urasági kápolna szemközt, kissé oldalt fekszik az urilakhoz, az
utcza tulsó felén. Jókora épület szép, sudár toronynyal, falun
templomnak is beillenék.
Leültünk Deák székébe.
A művész két képet vett föl rólunk.
Az egyik képen én ülök a padon s Linzer Béla barátom mellém
hajolva, bizalmasan közöl valamit. Mintha Deák Ferencz fülébe
valami jó barátja vagy kedvelt rokona halkan sugna valami érdekes
dolgot.
A másik képen magam ülök a padon. Deák nem sokkal volt
magasabb, mint én. Ugyanaz a gömbölyü termete, mint az enyém.
Bajusza ugyan más és sok minden más rajta, de körülbelül
akkorának látszó busafej, mint az enyém s kalapom ép oly nagy
karimáju, mint a minőt ő szokott viselni. Az egész kép feltünő
hasonlósággal állitja elénk a negyven év előtti jelenetet, a mikor
gesztenyefáinak árnyékában maga ült a padon, az igazi »öreg ur«.
 Itt szokott furni, faragni, fürészelgetni. Itt szokta késziteni fából
faragott diszes tárgyait.
De nem csak itt.
Zivataros, esős, szeles vagy hideg idő beszoritotta az előszobába,
vagy a nagy tekéző szobába. A faragás itt is kedvelt foglalkozása
volt, ha sógorának nem volt ideje vele beszélgetni, vagy ha
látogatók, jó barátok, államférfiak nem voltak a háznál.
Vagy ha nem olvasott. Vagy ha levelet nem irt.
Miként, mit és mennyit szokott olvasni s levelezésében miféle
szokást vagy rendszert követett: erről másutt közlöm azt, a mit
tudok.
Szép időben gyakran elballagott a falu északi végére, sógorának
gyönyörü bükkösébe. Sürü bükkösben nincs fű, vagy igen kevés,
legfölebb a ritkás helyeken. A bükkfa lombja olyan, mint a templom
boltozata. Sürü, homálytámasztó, napfény rajta át nem szürődik. Ez
azonban ritka bükkös, gyönyörü alaku fákkal. Alja füves, pázsitos,
erdei vadvirágos.
Ide szeretett kijárni. Zsebjeit megtömte szivarral, szerszámmal,
faragó fadarabokkal. Balkezére csapta vékony kelméjü fekete
felöltőjét, jobb kezébe vette kampós botjai egyikét s ment. Megtett
az erdőig vagy ezerötszáz lépést. Ott keresett árnyékos tuskót, arra
letelepedett s folytatta faragását.
A kocsizörgés fölhatolt hozzá. Ő minden kocsit látott, a mi jött
Söjtör felől, de őt nem igen láthatták az országutról. Ha kedves
látogatója jött: szedte-vette készségeit s nyomban ballagott
hazafelé. Mire a látogató kimosdott, kifésülködött az utiporból,
akkorra ő is otthon termett. Ha pedig a látogató csak üres tereferére
jött vagy nem volt kedves embere: akkor tovább füstölt s tovább
furt-faragott. Mintha senki se kopogtatott volna az ajtón.
Igen gyakran megtörtént vele csaknem naponkint, hogy a
természet titkos, bájos apró életjelenségei kötötték le figyelmét.
 Mikor a hangya vadász vagy kémkedik, vagy zsákmányát
hurczolja haza.
Okos ember előtt gyönyörü jelenet. Darwin egész életet töltött ily
tünetek gondos szemléletében. Igy tudta a fejlődés, alakulás, öröklés
igazi törvényeit fölfedezni. Deák nem volt se tudós, se
természetbuvár, de volt képessége mindenre. Nagy sziv, nagy ész,
nagy szellem. Nem saját értékének, saját egyéniségének becslésére
forditotta eszét s minden gondolatát. Erős és figyelő lélek volt.
Abban is bölcs, hogy a legkisebb féreg mozgásában is fölismerte a
mindenható örök eszme életét, az emberek erkölcsi létét s az élet
viszontagságait. A hogy a hangya megkeresi a kényelmesebb utat,
saját magának korábbi nyomait, az előtte járók nyomdokát; a hogy
békességes felebarátjával, saját népes családjának tagjával, saját
nemesi bolyának egyik lakójával találkozik s elmondják egymásnak,
ki ki mit látott, merre járt, hol van a biztos zsákmány: holt madár,
egérholttest, tücsökhulla, rózsatetvek sokasága; a hogy idegen
család tagját, idegen boly lakóját kikerüli vagy kifosztja és elkergeti s
a hogy a befejezett értekezés után mindegyik hangya megy tovább a
maga utján, vagy összefognak s együtt mennek valahova: ezeket
mind meglátta s mind gondosan megfigyelte a bölcs ember. Gyakran
elkisérte a hangyát száz lépésnyire: ugyan hová megy, miért
csatangol? Szeretkezés, találkozás, fosztogató vágy vagy utazási
ösztön vezeti-e apró szivét?
A Katiczabogár röst eszejárását, léha felfogását mindig különös
figyelmére méltatta. Ez a bogár gyönyörü kis állat. A tudósok
hétpontu bödének nevezik. A hátával felforditott vasfazékhoz
hasonlit, csakhogy nem nagyobb, mint egy kisebbfajta lencseszem.
Tud mászni s tud repülni.
Elindul a Katiczabogár, hogy majd elmegy valahova. Kaszinóba
vagy atyafilátogatóba, akárhova. Utjába kerül eleven fűszál, mely
arra hajlik, a merre az ő utja vezet. Dehogy kerülné ki. Hiszen a
fűszálon is jó és sima az út. Fölmegy a fűszálra s végigmászik a
hegyéig. Ám ott vége van a fűszálnak, az utnak s a járható világnak.
Mit csináljon most már? Belátja, hogy onnan tovább menni nem
Á
lehet. Tehát visszafordul s megint lemászik a fűszál tövéig. Ámde ott
eszébe jut, hogy hiszen neki előre kell menni s nem hátra. Uczczu,
megfordul azonnal s megint elmászik a fűszál hegyéig s ott megint
odaér a semmiségbe. Megcsinálja ezt a hiábavaló utat előre és hátra
százszor egymásután. Végtére igaz eszére tér s a fűszál hegyéről
nem fordul vissza, hanem felröppen s ugy elszáll, csak ugy dong.
Magam is sokszor elnéztem ezt a tünetet s édesen lepett meg,
mikor Deák Ferencztől is hallottam ezt.
– Hány ember jár igy! Százszor megtörténik vele, hogy választott
utja nem jó végre vezet, ideig-óráig vissza is fordul rajta s végül
megint csak arra téved.
A kártyásokról s adósságcsinálókról volt szó köztünk, mikor a
hétpontu bödéről emlékezett.
Gyönyörü mesét tudott az óriás agancsu szarvasbogárról s a
ganajhentergető hamuszinü bogárról is. Ezeket a meséket mind ott
gyüjtögette az erdőben, a fűszálak között, a tuskón üldögélve s a
természet apró életét vizsgálgatva.
Ilyenkor nem furt, nem faragott tovább: félretette kését, fáját,
vésőjét.
Az az óriási szellem, a mi az övé is volt, mindenre képes. Ő nem
vállalkozott másra, csak arra, hogy állambölcs legyen. Ha tudós, ha
költő, ha alakitó művész akart volna lenni: e pályán is a legelsők
közé, a legmagasabb fokig jutott volna. Ép ugy, mint Kossuth és
Széchényi. Nem egyenlő szellem ez a három, de szellemük nagysága
egyaránt mérhetetlen.
Rendes szokott időben ballagott haza az erdőről mindig. Gyakran
ott is feledett valamit. Kését vagy valamely darab faragványát. Ezt a
juhászok, gulyások estennen mindig hazavitték s átadták neki. Egy-
egy hatos járt érte meg egy jó szó.
Pedig nem is azért tették, hanem a szivardarabokért. Deák a
szivarnak csak kétharmadát szokta elszivni s a maradék
egyharmadot eldobta a fűbe. Csemege volt ez a nyájőrzőknek.

II.

(Puszta-Szent-Lászlón épitkezni kell. – Deák ügyvédi oklevelét kihirdetik. –

Tiszti ügyész, árvaszéki jegyző, táblabiró. – Azután alispán és követ. – A
lengyel arczképe. – A butorok. – A puszta-magyaródi akol. – A hires
adoma.)

Sógora és Klára nénje, a mióta összekeltek, mindig ott laktak

Puszta-Szent-Lászlón.
A régi urilak bizony kisméretü falusi nemesi udvar volt. Lassankint
szűknek bizonyult. Oszterhuber József már 1825-től kezdve megyei
előkelőséggé vált s házát nemcsak a rokonok, hanem a megyei
közélet férfiai is általában látogatták. Voltak ugyan vendégek
számára berendezett szobák a melléképületekben is, de ez is kevés
volt, kivált télen s kivált asszonyvendégeknek, a mikor a förgeteg és
a zimankó gyakran napokon át ott szoritotta őket.
Épiteni kellett nagyobb urilakot.
1832-ben határozták el s még ez évben az épitő anyag nagy
részét, téglát, meszet, homokot, cserepet összegyüjtöttek.
Természetesen a gazdaság maga szolgáltatott mindent, a vasat,
épületfát, asztalos és kályhás munkát kivéve. A fuvar és napszám
urasági erőből telt, szegődvényesekből és jobbágyokból.
A mikor Deák Antal a követségről lemondott s Pozsonyból
hazatért: talán épen azon a napon tették le az urilak alapkövét. Deák
Ferencz mint hű rokon ott volt az ünnepélynél. Tréfálkozott is, hogy
sógora csak lásson a gazdaság után, ő meg majd ellenőrzi az
épitőket.
Nem lett ebből semmi.
 Deák Ferencz nevét akkor már több mint kilencz év óta ismerte a
nemes vármegye.
Husz éves és két hónapos volt, a mikor az ügyvédi oklevelet
1823. évi deczember hó 19-én megkapta. Vajjon megvan-e valahol
még ez az oklevél? A vármegye 1824-ik évi február 16-iki
közgyülésén mutatta be Deák Ferencz az oklevelet.
Akkor a vármegye ellenőrzése alá tartozott minden oklevél.
Ügyvéd, orvos, mérnök addig nem dolgozhatott, mig a vármegye
közgyülésen meg nem tudta, van-e neki elég tudománya s rendes
oklevél bizonyitja-e, hogy eleget tanult s eléggé becsületes ember?
Az oklevelet nyilvános közgyülésen hirdették ki. Van-e valakinek
ellene valami kifogása? Ha nemesi oklevelet vagy egyéb királyi
kitüntetést kapott valaki: még azt is be kellett a vármegyének
jelenteni. A nélkül a nemesség, grófság, báróság, királyi és udvari
tanácsosság nem ért semmit közjogilag a nyilvánosság előtt. Csak
otthon használhatta a kitüntetett saját házában és udvarában. A
nemes urak nem adtak rá semmit.
Az 1824-ik évi február 16-iki közgyülés 353. számu végzése igy
szól: »Nemes Deák Ferencz urnak jelesen tett prókátori
próbatételéről 1823. évi deczember 19-én kelt királyi diplomája
kihirdettetett.«
Ime, a Tekintetes Királyi Tábla jelesnek ismerte el a husz éves
ifju jogi tudományát! S ime, akkor a prókátor név még nem volt
csufnév! Ám ha ma Deák Ferencz valamely süldő albiró előtt volna
kénytelen holmi bagatell ügyben a perrendtartás négy vagy
ötszázadik paragrafusa szerint könyörögni és patvarkodni és bélyeget
nyalni és költségszámlát késziteni!
Hujh, hujh!
Akkor még ugyan nem volt se perrendtartás, se bélyeg a magyar
világon. De albiró se.
 Ugyan az 1824-ik évi augusztus 9-iki megyei közgyülésen Deák
Ferencz urat becsületbeli tiszti ügyvédlőnek kinevezték. Honorárius
magistratualis fiscus lett hát neve és állása. Az volt általában a
dolga, hogy becsületből, azaz ingyen védelmezze a vádlottakat.
Nem is látott Deák Ferencz az ő ügyvédi és megyei tisztviselői
munkálkodása után soha egy lyukas fillért se. Hanem költsége – az
volt rá elég.
Ez év végén, a deczember 13-iki közgyülésen »Deák Ferencz ur a
megyebéli árvák dolgára ügyellő kirendeltség jegyzőjévé
kineveztetett.«
Dolga tehát megint szaporodott. Uj hivatala után se járt fizetés.
Ezt ellátni is nemesi kötelesség volt. Nobile officium. Akkor igy
nevezték.
1829-ik évi ápril 27-iki közgyülésen a vármegye táblabirájává
nevezték ki. Ekkor életkora huszonöt és fél év volt. S ime, volt már
három hivatala: tiszti alügyész, árvaügyi jegyző és megyei táblabiró.
A táblabiróságért se járt semmiféle fizetés. Ellenben a munka
megszaporodott és fontosabbá, nehezebbé vált. Az alispán
felhivására be kellett járni a sedriákra, a megyei törvényszéki
ülésekre, ott a tárgyalásokon jelen lenni s itélő birói munkát végezni.
Gyakran hetekig tartottak a sedriák; – a tekintetes táblabiró ur
dolgozzék naponként s éljen urasan a magáéból. Ha van miből.
A fizetés nem volt egyéb, csak becsület.
A táblabirónak a megyei közgyülésen birói esküt is kellett tenni.
Deák az esküt a junius 1-i közgyülésen tette le. Az eskü szövegét
mindig papnak kellett előolvasni. Pap nélkül soha nem volt a
közgyülés. Püspök, apát, kanonok, prépost vagy plébános mindig
volt jelen. Hetvenhét-féle esküje volt a vármegyének. A sok eskü egy
nagy könyvbe volt latin nyelven beirva. A feszület is mindig ott volt a
zöld posztóval bevont asztalon a nagy kalamárisok között. Egy-egy
kalamáris akkora volt, mint a mozsárágyu. A táblabiró odaállt a
feszület elé, fölemelt jobbkezének három ujját az ég felé vagyis a
padlás felé tartotta, a vármegye egész közönsége felállott s mikor a
kardcsörgés elmult: a pap olvasta s a táblabiró utána mondta az
esküt.
Attilában, kardosan és sarkantyus csizmában kellett az esküt
letenni, de az összes megyei tisztviselőknek is igy kellett a
közgyülésen jelen lenni.
A jegyzőkönyvbe 1374. pont alatt ezt vezették be: »Deák Ferencz
tisztes ügyvéd ur a rendes Tábla birói hitet letette.«
1832. évi augusztus 6-án az árvaügyi jegyzőségről lemondott. De
nem azért ám, hogy a dolgot unta vagy sokallotta vagy az állást
kicsinylette, hanem azért, mert az alispán urat, Tekintetes Deák
Antal urat országgyülési követté választották, – minthogy pedig ő
neki Pozsonyban kell lenni s a nemes vármegye közdolgait nem
intézheti, tehát Tekintetes Deák Ferencz Tábla Biró urat meg kellett
választani Surrogatus viceispánná. Surrogatus latin szó; – magyarul
azt jelenti: pótlék, az uj magyar nyelvtudósok szerint: pót.
Pótalispán!
Furcsa szó és furcsa állás. De mégis magas állás. Mégis alispáni
tiszt és hatalom. A ki pedig már alispán, az a vármegye árvaügyi
aljegyzője már csakugyan nem lehet. Jusson a tisztességből másnak
is.
De pótalispán se sokáig volt Deák Ferencz. A következő 1833-ik
évi április elején Deák Antal lemondott a követségről s helyébe
Ferencz öcscsét választották, A jegyzőkönyv igy szól róla:
»1833-ik évi ápril 15-iki közgyülésen Deák Antal urnak lemondása
folytán azon közbizodalomnál fogva, melylyel Deák Ferencz Tábla
biró ur és Surrogatus Alispán ur iránt a Tekintetes Karok és Rendek
viseltettek, – őtet közmegegyezéssel és felkiáltással nyomban
országgyülési követnek választották«.
 Deák Ferencznek hát el kellett menni Pozsonyba s igy a puszta-
szent-lászlói urilak épitésére fel nem ügyelhetett.
De azért volt gondja rá Pozsonyban is. Alig van levele, pedig sok
levelet irt szeretett sógorának, melyben hol komolyan, hol pajzánul
az épitésről meg ne emlékeznék. Inkább pajzánul, mint komolyan.
Május 31-iki levelében panaszkodik, hogy sógora kevés levelet ir
hozzá.
»Habár oly szorgalmatos nem vagyok is, mint Antal, de Te
csakugyan lustább vagy nálamnál. Ez már második levelem hozzád,
tőled azonban még egy sort sem kaptam, pedig ide lánczolva az
örökös viszálykodás untató helyére, édes volna tőletek és rólatok
hallani, együtt örülni, együtt aggódni véletek s ez által a száraz,
hideg és komoly helyheztetésből kiemelkedve, körötökbe álmodni
magamat. Az épitő gondos gazdától azonban rossz néven nem
vehetem eddigi hallgatását. Tudom, hogy szeretsz, tudom, hogy irni
fogsz, ha időd engedi, rovást pedig nem tartok.«
Gyöngéden gondoskodott Klára nénjéről is. Junius 6 iki levelében
ezt irja:
»Klárinak uj szobája ékesitésére küldök négy képet s azok között
egy Hazája elvesztén kétségbeesett Lengyelét, vegye oly szivesen,
mint a mily szeretettel én küldöm«.
Klára nénjének lelke a legszentebb hazafias fájdalmak érzetével
csak ugy tele volt, az elnyomott népek szabadságáért csak ugy
lángolt, mint férjéé vagy édes Ferkó öcscséé. Csakhogy ő még
hevesebben érzett, mint ezek. Nála a női lélek érzései korlátlanabbul
csapongtak, mint a férfiaknál. Az ő költője és szónoka Kölcsey volt s
nem Ferkó öcscse. Szegény eltiport lengyelek sorsát százszor
megsiratta. S Ferkó öcscsével százszor megfogadtatta, hogy a
lengyelekért szót emel s nem nyugszik, mig helyzetükön nem javit.
Meg vagyok győződve, hogy Deák Ferencznek, a mikor a
lengyelekért első gyönyörü szónoklatát tartotta, Klára nénje volt
eszében.
 Deák azt irja sógorának május végén:
»Kölcsey inkább költői melegséggel, mint diplomatikai
fontossággal szólott; – tudom, hogy Klári Kölcseyt mint költőt
szereti, megküldöm ezen beszédjét, olvasni nem kellemetlen.«
Azért küldte szobaékességül a busuló lengyel hazafi képét is.
Nem emlékszem, hogy láttam volna e képet akár Nyirlakon, akár
Puszta-Szent Lászlón. Vagy egészen elfeledtem. Tarányi Ferencz
nemes barátom adhat róla felvilágositást.
Az uj urilakba butor is kellett s Klára szobáit diszesebben is kellett
butorozni. Erről is gyöngéden gondoskodott Deák. Az uj urilakba
folyosón, ebédlőn, tekéző szobán kivül s a sok cselédszobán,
konyhán, éléskamrán s mellékhelyiségeken kivül még hat szoba van.
Mindezt a régi nemesi lak butorzata meg nem tölthette.
Deák a szüreti szünidőre 1833 október 1-én indult Pozsonyból
haza. Butorokat akart Puszta-Szent-Lászlóra szállitani. Szeptember
16-iki levelében ir erről.
Ezt irja sógorának:
»Ez lesz utolsó levelem ezuttal hozzád, mert két hét mulva
magam is indulok haza. Rövid is lesz most tudósitásom, mert szóval
mondom el Kehidán és Szent-Lászlón mindazt, a mit elmondani
érdemes leend.«
»… Alkuba ereszkedtem itten számodra mobiliára; – egy kanapé,
hat szék és két karszék 170 forinton, egy derék, uj izlésü ovalis
asztal 60 forinton s egy diván vagy Ruhbett 70 forinton s igy az
egész háromszáz váltó forinton megkapható. Tőled függ már most,
ha ennyit nem sokallasz-e érte? A munka csinos és uj izlésü; –
tudósits, ha akarsz venni, minél előbb, mert két hét mulva én
hazamegyek; – ha pedig leveled elkésne, Horváth Muki lesz oly
szives és elvégzi a végzendőket. Ezen esetre tehát majd otthon
beszélünk egymással s én Mukinak hazulról irhatok.«
 Némi magyarázat kell e sorokhoz.
Ez a Muki zalabéri Horváth János kamarás és aranykulcsos, a
vármegye első alispánja s Deák Antallal együtt Zala követe az 1832-
iki országgyülésen. Az 1833-ik évben Deák Ferenczczel is együtt
követeskedett, de azután ő is lemondott s helyébe Hertelendy Károly
másod alispánt választották. Mind Oszterhuber Józsefnek, mind a két
Deák-testvérnek igen jó barátja.
Pozsony már akkor is ugyszólván Bécs elővárosa volt. A butorok
készitésében Bécs izlését követte, a divatot pedig Bécs izlése és
szabálya irányozta. Túl a dunai uri családok szivesen szereztek be
bécsi divatu butorokat.
A butorszállitás akkor nehezebb volt. Vasut nem volt, kipárnázott
szállitó kocsik nem voltak, a butor töredékeny dolog, finom kelméje
a zökögős utakon könnyen kopik, szakad, dörzsölődik. Két
hurczolkodás egy elégés. Ez volt a példabeszéd és közmondás. A
butorok, melyeket Deák kiszemelt, csakugyan Puszta-Szent-Lászlóra
értek. Klára urasszony nagyon örült nekik. Győrig hajón, onnan
pedig szénás szekéren szállitották. Néhány darabja ma is megvan,
hetvenegy esztendő mulva. A butorokat a nemesi családok falun
nem szokták változtatni, kicserélni, a változó divat szerint ujra
bevásárlani. Századokon át megtartották, mig csak a ház le nem
égett vagy a butorok végkép el nem pusztultak.
Feltünő a butorok olcsó ára. Háromszáz váltó forint a mai
pénznemben 252 korona. Ma ez a butor legalább öt-hatszáz korona
volna.
Oszterhuber József nagy birtokszerző, gondos gazda s fölötte
józan, takarékos ember volt. Mintája a magyar középbirtoku
nemesnek. Deszkát, gerendát, födélfát Zala akkor még jó fenyőfából
nem tudott előállitani. Nyárfa, tölgy és bükk adta az épületfát.
Oszterhuber azonban fenyőt akart használni, fenyőt pedig csak
Stájer adott. Oszterhuber maga ült kocsira s utazott Stájerba a fát
kiválogatni. Ökörszekéren hetekig tartott a rossz utakon a szállitás.
 E stájeri út miatt is pajzánkodott sogorával Deák Ferencz. De
még inkább sógora nagy takarékossága miatt.
Attól tartott ugyanis Deák, hogy a takarékosság miatt az uj
kastély nem lesz elég szilárd. Az 1833. junius 6-iki levelében igy
dévajkodik Deák:
»… Térjünk által Szent-Lászlóra. Hatalmas a te szavad, kedves
sógor, Isten előtt, mert ennyi szárazság, mely csak épitőnek,
téglavetőnek s Rudics kollégánknak, kinek 50 ezer mérő tavalyi
gabonája vagyon eladó, lehet kedves! Tudom, eddig már egy ölnyire
fölemelkedtek házadnak falai. Sajnálom, hogy uj házadat, ha
elkészül, nem láthatom, mert a mire mi Pozsonyból megszabadulunk,
nem kétlem, összedől, mint a magyaródi akol. De ne busulj, sógor,
hazamegyek szüretre és ha látom, hogy valamelyik oldalon hajolni
kezd, neki vetem vállamat, visszatámasztom és tavaszig csak eltart.«
Deák akkor még nem volt egészen harmincz éves. Széles
vállakkal, hatalmas izmokkal, legerősebb a család férfiai között. Az
országgyülési követek közt is csak báró Wesselényi Miklós volt
erősebb. Ime, igy tréfálkozik sógorával.
A magyaródi akolnak története van. Vagyis később története lett.
Deák egyik leghiresebb politikai adomája származott belőle.
Puszta-Magyaród vagy három kilométernyire van délre Puszta-
Szent-Lászlótól. Itt is Oszterhuber-birtok volt. 1830-ban vagy 1831-
ben födeles juhaklot épitett az uraság falábakra. A falábak is jó
mélyen el voltak ültetve, a sárgerendák is a falábakra, a födélfák is a
sárgerendákra jól meg voltak látszólag kötve. Igazi urasági
épitkezés.
Azt mondja az uraság Deáknak:
– Gyere, Ferkó, nézd meg az uj aklot.
Odamennek, körülnézegetik az aklot. Ott van velük szótlanul az
öreg béres. Hozzászól az uraság:
 – Ugy-e, Mihály, megáll az akol?
– Meg az, uram, mindaddig, mig erős szél nem fuj.
Tavaszszal jött egy erős bőjti szélroham, ledobta az akol tetejét s
ugy összetörte, mint a pozdorját.
Deák gyakran jóizün nevetett az öreg béres bölcseségén.
Az 1858-ik év felén valamelyik osztrák miniszter itt volt
Budapesten, s ellátogatott a Nemzeti Kaszinóba. Véletlenül ott volt
Deák Ferencz is s bemutatták neki a minisztert. Társai
belekeveredtek a politikába, korholták az osztrák Bach-rendszert,
beszéltek a nemzet elégületlenségéről s elmondták a miniszternek,
hogy e rendszernek előbb-utóbb meg kell bukni.
Deák nem igen avatkozott a beszélgetésbe. Csak hallgatta nagy
bodor szivarfüst mellett a sok bölcseséget.
Az osztrák miniszter keményen védelmezte a rendszert, s utóbb
odafordult Deákhoz.
– Ugy-e Deák ur is látja, hogy a mi rendszerünk erősen áll?
– Látom, de oly módon, mint a sógorom magyaródi aklát.
S elmondta az akolszemlét, az öreg béres mondását, s a tavaszi
összeomlást.
– Mig erős szél nem fuj!
A következő évben megjött az erős szél. Az osztrák hadsereget
Lombardia sikjain ugy elverték az olaszok és francziák, mint a
kétfenekü dobot. S 1860-ban csakugyan megbukott a rendszer.

III.
 (Találkozik a farkassal. – Hogy szokott Puszta-Szent-Lászlóra jutni? – Ki
lesz a Durák? – Az út. – Glavina Lajos. – A szüreti tűz. – A tűz a
természetben, vallásban, költészetben, magyarok történetében. – A
háztűznézés. – Deák lelke andalog a tűzön.)

Deák testi szervezete már a mult század negyvenes éveiben sem

volt tökéletesen egészséges. Ő is, az orvosai is azt hitték, vak
aranyere van s az az agyban gyakran vértolulást s a gyomorban is
bajokat okozott. Általános orvosi vélemény szerint akkor e bajnak az
ételben-italban való mérséklet s a gyakori és huzamos mozgás volt
az orvossága.
Sétálni kellett nagyokat.
Deák Puszta-Szent-Lászlón hiven követte ez orvosi tanácsot.
Nagy sétákat tett.
Puszta-Szent-Lászlótól északnyugatra fekszik az urbonaki puszta,
melyhez szintén tartozott egy erdőrész. Az 1857-ik év egyik tavaszi
szép napján erre sétálgatott Deák. Fegyver nem volt nála, soha se
szokott magával hordani. Csak jó vastag kampós botja.
Az erdőben pihenőül leült egy vastag fatörzsökre s szivarzott
nyugodtan. Kezébe botja, térdén felöltője.
Egyszerre valami zörgést hall baloldalán, odatekint, s ime, egy
ordas áll mellette alig két lépésnyire. Valóságos jól kinőtt hatalmas
farkas.
Most már Zalavármegye is mentes e fenevadaktól, de ezelőtt
ötven évvel a Dráva berkei tele voltak farkassal s innen kemény
télben el szoktak csatangolni a Mura és Lendva bozótjaiba s Göcsej
erdeibe is. Az 1857-iki tél különösen erős és hosszu volt, ez a farkas
véletlenül tavaszra is itt maradt. S most kemény farkasszemet nézett
Deák Ferenczczel.
De Deák Ferencz is ő vele.
Egyik se mozdult. Csak mérték egymást. Az ordas az ő ravasz,
élénk tüzes szemeivel, Deák pedig a maga nyugodt komor arczával s
oroszlán tekintetével.
Hát hiszen erős férfi erősebb, mint a farkas. Ha birokra kerülnek,
ha a férfi bátor s ha a vad harapása meg nem bénitja az egyik kart,
erős ember megfojthatja elvégre a farkast. Csak bizonyos gyakorlat,
ügyesség és szerencse kell hozzá. Ám a farkasnak biztosan megvan
gyakorlata és ügyessége, mert ez az életmódja. Deák Ferencznek
pedig abban csakugyan nincs gyakorlata, hogy fenevadakkal
birkózzék s azokat fojtogassa.
De kezeügyében volt vastag, erős, sulyos botja. Ez is nagy dolog.
Halálos rémületre csakugyan nem volt oka.
De ha lett volna is: természete nem engedte meg a
megrémülést. Deák valóban az életet fenyegető közvetlen veszélylyel
szemben rettenthetetlen volt minden alkalommal. Példa rá a
feldühödött bivalybika rohamának nyugodt kiállása s Pozsonyban az
országházi vad rémület nyugodt kikerülése. Ez eseteket másutt
fogom elbeszélni. De példa rá Hajnal haramia bandájával való
találkozása is, melyet már elbeszéltem.
Nyugodtan nézett a farkas szemei közé is. Még csak szivarja se
aludt ki, csak ugy szivta, mintha senki se lett volna mellette. De
szemeit nem vette le gonosz vendégéről.
Végre a farkas meggondolta magát. Nem látta biztosnak a
zsákmányt. Talán nem is volt éhes. Ürgét, egeret, kósza tyukot,
nyulfiat eleget foghatott az év ama szakában. Megfordult,
elballagott, kétszer még visszanézett Deák Ferenczre s azután ugy
elszelelt, csak ugy zörgött nyomán a haraszt.
Mai napság többféle vasuton lehet eljutni Puszta-Szent-László
közelébe, de nem igy volt ez hajdan. Két-három napon át kocsin
kellett rázatni magát az embernek, ha onnan Pestre, vagy Pestről
oda kellett jutni. Az első éjjeli állomása gyakran Veszprém volt Deák
Ferencznek. Itt mindig Oszterhuber Ferencznél, József testvérjénél
szállt meg, a ki veszprémi kanonok volt s vagyonos ember.
Másodizigleni sógor. Ezt is kedvelte ugyan Deák, de megközelitőleg
se annyira, mint Józsefet, Klára nénje férjét. Deák szelleméhez s
mély és terjedelmes gondolkodásához s gazdag és nemes érzéseihez
sokkal messzebb volt a kanonok lelkülete, mint Józsefé.
Van egy Deák-adoma, melyben e kanonok sógorának volt
szerepe. Helyén lesz itt elmondanom.
A veszprémi nemes káptalan igen gazdag, s terjedelmes
uradalmain kivül több millióra rugó tőkepénze is van, melyet szerény
kamatozás mellett kölcsönökbe szokott fektetni. Szerencsés adós volt
az, a kinek a a nemes káptalan volt a hitelezője. Időnként nagy
pénzforgalom szokott lenni a káptalani pénztárnál.
Igy volt 1849-ben is nyáron, Haynau berohanásának idején.
Akkor kétféle pénz volt. Magyar pénz, német pénz. A magyar
pénzt Kossuth-bankónak nevezték. Ebből is volt a káptalannak elég.
Azonban fölmerült a kérdés: mi lesz a német pénzzel, ha a
magyarok győznek, s mi lesz a magyar pénzzel, ha a németek
győznek? A nemes káptalan feje nem azért a legokosabb fej, hogy
az neki is eszébe ne jutott volna. Azután az ő pénze nem is az övé,
hanem szent alapitványoké, azt a pénzt tehát meg kell becsülni; se
készakarva, se gondatlanságból eltékozolni nem lehet.
De hát mit csináljanak? Mi lesz a jövő? Erre a nemes káptalan
még se tudott megfelelni.
Ott volt azonban Bezerédy Miklós püspök és nagyprépost,
különben is eszes ember, több országgyülésen káptalani követ. Deák
Ferencznek ismerőse. Adott ő tanácsot.
– Sohase törjük a fejünket, amice. Csak egy ember van a világon,
a ki mindent tud előre, mi fog történni a jövendőben. Ez Deák
Ferencz. Kérdezzük meg őt. Csakhogy, ha mi egyenesen
megkérdezzük: nem felel semmit. De itt van az egyházi státusban az
ő sógora: Oszterhuber Ferencz. Kérjük meg, bizzuk meg, menjen el
Deákhoz atyafilátogatóba s ugy mellékesen észrevétlenül, bizalmas
beszélgetés közben vegye ki belőle, mi lesz utóbb a magyar pénzzel?
 – Jó lesz biz ez!
Oszterhuber Ferencz kocsira ült s ment Kehidára Deáknál
atyafiságos látogatást tenni. Oda csőditett még egy csomó rokont és
jó barátot is. Ne tünjék fel a látogatás valódi czélja.
Csakugyan előjött a szó a magyar pénz jövendőjéről. Még csak
nem is Oszterhuber hozta elő. A csel sikerült.
Volt akkor egy kártyajáték, ugy hivták: Durák. A játszók közt
kiosztották a kártyákat, szinre szint kellett adni s mindig ütni kellett.
A végczél az volt, hogy a játszó kezében ne maradjon kártya. A kinek
játék végén a kezében legtöbb kártya maradt: az vesztette el a
játékot, az lett a Durák. Vesztesége az volt, hogy orrához verték a
tökfilkót. A miből támadt aztán nagy derültség. Ismerte e játékot a
társaságban mindenki.
Hát a mikor ott jó ideig beszélgetnek, pipáznak, adomáznak a
magyar pénzről, hogy mi is lesz annak a jövendője, egyszer csak azt
mondja Deák:
– Bizony meglehet az, hogy a kinek utóbb legtöbb marad a
kezében: az lesz a Durák!
Uczczu neki! Több se kellett. Hajtott a jó kanonok Veszprémbe
lóhalálában, hogy jelentést tegyen a nemes káptalannak. Nem is
vesztettek a kegyes alapitványok a magyar pénzen talán egy fillért
se.
A második éjjeli állomás Pest felé Martonvásár szokott lenni Fehér
vármegyében s onnan a harmadik napon már be lehetett Pestre
hajtani.
Ez volt a leggyorsabb út. Ez csak három napig tartott. De Deák
gyakran megállt és megszállt Nyirlakon is, Sümegh mellett, mert az
ott lakó harmadik Oszterhuber-testvért, Mihályt, se lehetett
könnyedén elkerülni. Deák igazi jó rokon volt. Mindenkitől, közeli s
távoli rokontól ő is megvárta, hogy Kehidán őt minden lehető
alkalommal meglátogassák. Ő is sietett atyafiságos jó érzését