The surface temperatures of flat areas on the Moon

Abstract

Lunar surface temperature (LST) is a quantity of special interest for interpreting the thermal character of the regolith. It is affected by the solar irradiance, earthshine, and heat flow for the flat areas on the Moon. We present an improved transient temperature model to calculate temperatures of lunar flat surfaces. The model consists of one-dimensional thermal diffusion equation and two boundary conditions. The improved lunar surface boundary condition allows one to precisely determine the effective solar irradiance (ESI) and earthshine. The simulated surface temperatures suggest consistency with the measured temperatures from the thermocouples of Apollo 15 and 17 heat flow experiments. From the LST simulated with the improved model, it is found the annual-seasonal variations present obvious latitude characters, with the highest surface temperature occurring in late October, November, and December separately at high (>∼72°) latitudes, middle latitudes, and low (<∼20°) latitudes, respectively; the lowest surface temperatures occur in late July. Furthermore, the discrepancies between the maximum and minimum temperatures decrease as latitude increases, as do the maximum and minimum lunar surface temperatures. The surface daytime temperature would change by 179.4 K with a 1322.5 W/m2 change in the ESI. A 0.12 W/m2 and 0.02 W/m2 change of the earthshine and heat flow would lead to 0.5 and 0.09 K in surface nighttime temperature, respectively.