Winds, Condensation Clouds, Dust Storms, and Polar Caps of Mars

Details Winds, Condensation Clouds, Dust Storms, and Polar Caps of Mars Winds, Condensation Clouds, Dust Storms, and Polar Caps of Mars

May 2001

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001agusm...p32a01i&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2001, abstract #P32A-01 INVITED

Physics

5445 Meteorology (3346), 5462 Polar Regions, 6007 Atmospheres--Structure And Dynamics, 6015 Dust, 6225 Mars

Scientific paper

Using the wide angle images from the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC), we have constructed daily global maps in color (from the red and violet filters) at 7 km per pixel resolution. The maps have been made into movies that show dust storms and condensate clouds as well as the positions of the seasonal polar caps. From the dust and condensate clouds, we can measure winds and can monitor the climatology of these features. We can measure the spreading rate of the dust storms, and we can observe the relation between dust storms and the polar caps. Using the narrow angle images from the MOC, we have monitored features within the South Polar residual cap -- the so-called Swiss cheese features. These are circular depressions tens of meters deep and hundreds of meters in diameter that are only found in the south and only where the frost remains throughout the summer. The obvious inference is that they form spontaneously in carbon dioxide ice. A key question is whether the South Polar residual cap is made entirely of carbon dioxide, or whether it could be a veneer of carbon dioxide over a much thicker mass of water ice. The circular depressions may provide the answer. Preliminary modeling of depressions in pure carbon dioxide frost suggests that the frost heals itself and the depressions disappear. Putting water ice underneath the carbon dioxide leads to a long lived depression that grows slowly outward and resembles those observed.

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