Effects of climate change on the landscape of Titan

We used synthetic aperture radar from the Cassini spacecraft to document global trends in Titan’s geomorphic evolution and infer it’s climate history. Key focus areas are landforms shaped by fluvial and aeolian processes, impact cratering, and tectonic activities. We found a latitudinal distribution of terrains, with fluvial features more common at higher latitudes and dunes dominating the equatorial regions. This supports a hypothesis of poleward shifting precipitation and a decline in fluvial activity over time. This favors a scenario where Titan experienced a brief period of intense precipitation, followed by a gradual decline in rainfall and a poleward restriction of fluvial processes. We suggested that fluvial erosion and deposition are ongoing primarily in the polar regions, with past activity more prominent at lower latitudes. This supports the idea that Titan’s methane-based hydrological cycle has been diminishing over time, potentially leading to a decline in surface erosion and the drying of equatorial regions, while the poles retain more active fluvial and lacustrine processes.

Moore et al. (2014) JGR: Planets