Forward velocities of Martian Dust Devils

Details Forward velocities of Martian Dust Devils Forward velocities of Martian Dust Devils

Sep 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006dps....38.6002s&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #38, #60.02; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.597

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on Mars Express provides stereo images of the Martian surface in excellent quality. The stereo channels can also be used to detect and investigate temporal and spatial variable surface features like dust devils. Dust devils are dust-filled vortices with diameters up to hundreds of meters and up to 8 km high. They are identified by a bright spot which is the sunlight reflecting dust column and their cast shadow.
Forward velocities have been derived for 50 dust devils from their change in position seen in the three stereo channels of HRSC. Speeds of a few meters per second have been measured for the majority of dust devils which corresponds to expected velocities assuming that dust devils are travelling with the ambient wind. Speeds of few dust devils, however, have been determined between 15 and 27 m/s not consistent with previous assumptions of the wind velocity at the Martian surface (ca. 5 m/s).
Wind profiles derived from the Martian Climate Database (http://www.lmd.jussieu.fr/mars.html) for a given local time, season and region of detected dust devils are compared with the dust devil speeds and their heights. The comparison implies that the observed high dust devil speeds (the change in position of the bright spot in HRSC images) have been measured at the top of the vortex rather than at the surface.
The derived speeds are interpreted as near-surface values (underlined by the impression of the images) after a reanalysis of the data considering potential parallax errors.

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