Reassessment of net radiation measurements in the atmosphere of Venus

Net radiative flux measurements by instruments on the Pioneer Venus Day, North, and Night probes are too large below 30 km to be consistent with present estimates of atmospheric opacity. We evaluate the only known mechanisms which could potentially have caused significant errors in the deep atmosphere, namely, (1) radiation field perturbations behind each probe due to its thermal wake, (2) cloud particle deposition on the sensor windows, and (3) thermal perturbations within the radiation sensor produced by gas flow through the sensor window retainers. Thermal analysis of the wake effect shows that temperature perturbations are not large enough to produce significant flux perturbations when gas opacity and sensor field-of-view characteristics are taken into account. The particle deposition effect is rejected because it requires a signature in the measured radiation profile which is not observed. The absence of such a feature also implies that mode 3 cloud particles are either not sulfuric acid or are far less numerous than previously reported. We find that the third mechanism is the most likely source of the large net flux measurements. However, this error is not sufficiently constrained by laboratory data to allow rigorous corrections to the measured flux profiles. If we use radiative transfer calculations to constrain the fluxes at 14 km and limited laboratory data to estimate the altitude dependence of the error, then we obtain a plausible set of corrected flux profiles which are roughly consistent with reasonable H₂O mixing ratios below the clouds.