Scott D. Guzewich

Influence of water ice clouds on nighttime tropical temperature structure as seen by the Mars Climate Sounder

An analysis of nighttime temperature and water ice cloud extinction profiles from the Mars Climate Sounder aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter provides evidence for the close relationship between tropical temperature structure and water ice clouds. The tropical temperature structure that evolves over the spring and summer seasons is closely coupled to the waxing and waning of tropical cloud activity. The presence of strong elevated nighttime temperature inversions in the Tharsis region is a robust feature of the equatorial atmosphere during the Ls = 0–135° season, with little interannual variation seen in the three Mars years examined. Mars global circulation model simulations imply that cloud radiative forcing plays a dominant role in the seasonal modulation of the observed longitude distribution of warm and cold anomalies in surface and low-altitude air temperatures, respectively.

Thermal tides during the 2001 Martian global‐scale dust storm

The 2001 (Mars Year 25) global dust storm radically altered the dynamics of the Martian atmosphere. Using observations from the Thermal Emission Spectrometer onboard the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft and MarsWRF general circulation model simulations, we examine the changes to thermal tides and planetary waves caused by the storm. We find that the extratropical diurnal migrating tide is dramatically enhanced during the storm, particularly in the southern hemisphere, reaching amplitudes of more than 20 K. The tropical diurnal migrating tide is weakened to almost undetectable levels. The diurnal Kelvin waves are also significantly weakened, particularly during the period of global expansion at Ls = 200°–210°. In contrast, the westward propagating diurnal wavenumber 2 tide strengthens to 4–8 K at altitudes above 30 km. The wavenumber 1 stationary wave reaches amplitudes of 10–12 K at 50°–70°N, far larger than is typically seen during this time of year. The phase of this stationary wave and the enhancement of the diurnal wavenumber 2 tide appear to be responses to the high-altitude westward propagating equatorial wavenumber 1 structure in dust mixing ratio observed during the storm in previous works. This work provides a global picture of dust storm wave dynamics that reveals the coupling between the tropics and high-latitude wave responses. We conclude that the zonal distribution of thermotidal forcing from atmospheric aerosol concentration is as important to understanding the atmospheric wave response as the total global mean aerosol optical depth.

Martian Polar Vortices: Comparison of Reanalyses

The structure and evolution of the Martian polar vortices is examined using two recently available reanalysis systems: version 1.0 of the Mars Analysis Correction Data Assimilation (MACDA) and a preliminary version of the Ensemble Mars Atmosphere Reanalysis System (EMARS). There is quantitative agreement between the reanalyses in the lower atmosphere, where Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) data is assimilated, but there are differences at higher altitudes reflecting differences in the free-running general circulation model simulations used in the two reanalyses. The reanalyses show similar potential vorticity (PV) structure of the vortices: There is near-uniform small PV equatorward of the core of the westerly jet, steep meridional PV gradients on the polar side of the jet core, and a maximum of PV located off of the pole. In maps of 30 sol-mean PV, there is a near-continuous elliptical ring of high PV with roughly constant shape and longitudinal orientation from fall to spring. However, the shape and orientation of the vortex varies on daily time scales, and there is not a continuous ring of PV but rather a series of smaller scale coherent regions of high PV. The PV structure of the Martian polar vortices is, as has been reported before, very different from that of Earths stratospheric polar vortices, but there are similarities with Earths tropospheric vortices which also occur at the edge of the Hadley Cell, have near-uniform small PV equatorward of the jet, and a large increase of PV poleward of the jet due to increased stratification.

The vertical distribution of Martian aerosol particle size

Using approximately 410 limb-viewing observations from the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM), we retrieve the vertical distribution of Martian dust and water ice aerosol particle sizes. We find that dust particles have an effective radius of 1.0 µm over much of the atmospheric column below 40 km throughout the Martian year. This includes the detached tropical dust layers detected in previous studies. Little to no variation with height is seen in dust particle size. Water ice clouds within the aphelion cloud belt exhibit a strong sorting of particle size with height, however, and the effective radii range from >3 µm below 20 km to near 1.0 µm at 40 km altitude. Conversely, water ice clouds in the seasonal polar hoods show a near-uniform particle size with an effective radius of approximately 1.5 µm throughout the atmospheric column.

Penitentes as the Origin of the Bladed Terrain of Tartarus Dorsa on Pluto

Penitentes are snow and ice features formed by erosion that, on Earth, are characterized by bowl-shaped depressions several tens of centimetres across, whose edges grade into spires up to several metres tall. Penitentes have been suggested as an explanation for anomalous radar data on Europa, but until now no penitentes have been identified conclusively on planetary bodies other than Earth. Regular ridges with spacings of 3,000 to 5,000 metres and depths of about 500 metres with morphologies that resemble penitentes have been observed by the New Horizons spacecraft in the Tartarus Dorsa region of Pluto (220°–250° E, 0°–20° N). Here we report simulations, based upon a recent model representing conditions on Pluto, in which deepening penitentes reproduce both the tri-modal (north–south, east–west and northeast–southwest) orientation and the spacing of the ridges of this bladed terrain. At present, these penitentes deepen by approximately one centimetre per orbital cycle and grow only during periods of relatively high atmospheric pressure, suggesting a formation timescale of several tens of millions of years, consistent with crater ages. This timescale implies that the penitentes formed from initial topographic variations of no more than a few tens of metres, consistent with Pluto’s youngest terrains.

What causes Mars' annular polar vortices?

A distinctive feature of the Martian atmosphere is that the winter polar vortices exhibit annuli of high potential vorticity (PV) with a local minimum near the pole. These annuli are seen in observations, reanalyses, and free-running general circulation model simulations of Mars, but are not generally a feature of Earths polar vortices, where there is a monotonic increase in magnitude of PV with latitude. The creation and maintenance of the annular polar vortices on Mars are not well understood. Here we use simulations with a Martian general circulation model to the show that annular vortices are related to another distinctive, and possibly unique in the solar system, feature of the Martian atmosphere: the condensation of the predominant atmospheric gas species (CO2) in polar winter regions. The latent heat associated with CO2 condensation leads to destruction of PV in the polar lower atmosphere, inducing the formation of an annular PV structure.

Development of a Mars lidar (MARLI) for measuring wind and aerosol profiles from orbit

Our understanding of the Mars atmosphere and the coupled atmospheric processes that drive its seasonal cycles is limited by a lack of observation data, particularly measurements that capture diurnal and seasonal variations on a global scale. As outlined in the 2011 Planetary Science Decadal Survey and the recent Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG) Goals Document, near-polar-orbital measurements of height-resolved aerosol backscatter and wind profiles are a high-priority for the scientific community and would be valuable science products as part of a next-generation orbital science package. To address these needs, we have designed and tested a breadboard version of a direct detection atmospheric wind lidar for Mars orbit. It uses a single-frequency, seeded Nd:YAG laser ring oscillator operating at 1064 nm (4 kHz repetition rate), with a 30-ns pulse duration amplified to 4 mJ pulse energy. The receiver uses a Fabry-Perot etalon as part of a dual-edge optical discrimination technique to isolate the Doppler-induced frequency shift of the backscattered photons. To detect weak aerosol backscatter profiles, the instrument uses a 4x4 photon-counting HgCdTe APD detector with a 7 MHz bandwidth and < 0.4 fW/Hz1/2 noise equivalent power. With the MARLI lidar breadboard instrument, we were able to measure Doppler shifts continuously between 1 and 30 m/s by using a rotating chopper wheel to impart a Doppler shift to incident laser pulses. We then coupled the transmitter and receiver systems to a laser ranging telescope at the Goddard Geophysical and Astronomical Observatory (GGAO) to measure backscatter and Doppler wind profiles in the atmosphere from the ground. We measured a 5.3 ± 0.8 m/s wind speed from clouds in the planetary boundary layer at a range of 4 to 6 km. This measurement was confirmed with a range-over-time measurement to the same clouds as well as compared to EMC meteorological models. Here we describe the lidar approach and the breadboard instrument, and report some early results from ongoing field experiments.