| Abstract: | Previous work on the atmosphere of Uranus is extended to Neptune. The variation of effective temperature with latitude and season is evaluated within the approximations that the redistribution of internal heat in the interior results in the temperature at fixed pressure near the top of the convective region being independent of latitude and time, and that the transport of heat in the atmosphere is by means of radiation and convection. Meridional heat transport in the atmosphere is neglected. It is found that as the absorbed solar flux varies with season the flux of internal heat varies in the opposite sense such that the variation in the sum of the two is much smaller than the variation in either. The resulting variation in the flux radiated out the top of the atmosphere, which responds to the sum of the internal and absorbed solar fluxes, is substantially smaller than for Uranus because of the much larger flux of internal heat. For Neptune, the time-averaged effective temperature at the pole is ≈0.2°K greater than at the equator and the seasonal variation in the polar effective temperature is ≈0.8°K. |
