Titan’s climate: a warming blanket and a cooling haze leave surface only modestly above the model
Titan’s climate is a tug-of-war between a greenhouse warming (+21 K, ~38°F) from its thick atmosphere and a high-altitude antigreenhouse cooling (−9 K, ~16°F) from hazy skies. Net effect: the surface sits about 22°F warmer than Titan’s effective temperature (94 K vs 82 K). Huygens and Cassini measurements corroborate the surface temperature, while the breakdown into warming and cooling terms comes from a 1991 model by McKay, Pollack and Courtin, illustrating Titan’s climate as a balance of large opposing processes.