Fine Vertical Structures at the Cloud Heights of Venus Revealed by Radio Holographic Analysis of Venus Express and Akatsuki Radio Occultation Data

Radio occultation (RO) is one of the most efficient techniques for studying fine vertical structures in planetary atmospheres. However, the geometrical optics (GO) method, which has been used for the analysis of RO data, suffers blurring by the finite width (Fresnel scale) of the radio ray and cannot decipher multipath propagation, which also prevents retrieval of fine structures. Here we apply Full Spectrum Inversion (FSI), which is one of the radio holographic methods, to RO data taken in Venus Express and Akatsuki missions to retrieve fine structures in Venus' cloud‐level atmosphere. The temperature profiles obtained by FSI achieve vertical resolutions of ~150 m, which is much higher than the typical resolution of 400–700 m in GO, and resolve structures in multipath regions. Thin, near‐neutral layers are found to be ubiquitous at cloud heights; we suggest here that those layers are caused by the mixing associated with the breaking of short‐wavelength gravity waves. The wavenumber spectra of small‐scale structures are consistent with the semiempirical spectrum of saturated gravity waves and show larger amplitudes at higher latitudes. Temperature profiles in the high latitudes frequently show a sharp temperature minimum near the cloud top, below which the vertical temperature gradient is near adiabat, implying that the sharp temperature minimum is created by adiabatic cooling associated with convective plumes that impinge on the overlying stable layer. Key Points Full Spectrum Inversion was applied to radio occultation of Venus to disentangle multipath and achieve unprecedented vertical resolution Thin, near‐neutral layers are frequently observed, implying breaking of gravity waves having short vertical wavelengths Temperature profiles in the high latitudes frequently show a sharp temperature minimum near the cloud top