Overview of the Titan PCM

The Titan PCM (Planetary Climate Model)

In a nutshell, the Titan Planetary Climate Model is a General Circulation Model (GCM) of the titanian atmosphere. It is in fact a suite of models which may be run in various configurations: with the historical lon-lat (LMDz) dynamics, or as a regional model using WRF (a limited area dynamical core), or even as a 1D (single column) model.

Getting started

The traditional Titan PCM - LMDz (formerly know as the IPSL Titan GCM) is the most commonly used version. For a first try at installing and running the Titan PCM we recommend you start from the Quick Install and Run Titan PCM page. You will also most likely be interested in all the pages tagged as "Titan-Model" or "Venus-LMDZ" in the Categories section.

Bibliography

2025

• Bruno De Batz De Trenquelléon, Lucie Rosset, Jan Vatant d’Ollone, Sébastien Lebonnois, Pascal Rannou, Jérémie Burgalat, et Sandrine Vinatier. « The New Titan Planetary Climate Model. I. Seasonal Variations of the Thermal Structure and Circulation in the Stratosphere ». The Planetary Science Journal 6, no 4 (1 avril 2025): 78. https://doi.org/10.3847/PSJ/adbbe7.
• Bruno De Batz De Trenquelléon, Pascal Rannou, Jérémie Burgalat, Sébastien Lebonnois, et Jan Vatant d’Ollone. « The New Titan Planetary Climate Model. II. Titan’s Haze and Cloud Cycles ». The Planetary Science Journal 6, no 4 (1 avril 2025): 79. https://doi.org/10.3847/PSJ/adbb6c.

2020

• Vatant d’Ollone, Jan. « Numerical modelling of the seasonal variations in Titan’s atmosphere ». These de doctorat, Sorbonne université, 2020. https://theses.fr/2020SORUS401.

2019

• Lora, J. M., T. Tokano, J. Vatant d'Ollone, S. Lebonnois, and R. D. Lorenz A model intercomparison of Titan's climate and low-latitude environment. Icarus, 333, 113. (2019) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019103518307838?via%3Dihub

2015

• Charnay, Benjamin, Erika Barth, Scot Rafkin, Clément Narteau, Sébastien Lebonnois, Sébastien Rodriguez, Sylvain Courrech du Pont, et Antoine Lucas. « Methane Storms as a Driver of Titan’s Dune Orientation ». Nature Geoscience 8, no 5 (mai 2015): 362‑66. https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2406.

2012

• Lebonnois, Sébastien, Jérémie Burgalat, Pascal Rannou, et Benjamin Charnay. « Titan Global Climate Model: A New 3-Dimensional Version of the IPSL Titan GCM ». Icarus 218, no 1 (mars 2012): 707‑22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2011.11.032.
• Charnay, B. and S. Lebonnois Two boundary layers in Titan's lower troposphere inferred from a climate model. Nature Geoscience, 5, 106. (2012) https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo1374