The Climatology of Martian Mesospheric Dust and Water Ice Aerosols as Observed in MGS-TES Thermal Infrared Limb Sounding

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Aerosols at mesospheric (>45; km) altitudes in the martian atmosphere have been known since the Viking missions (e.g., Jaquin et al., Icarus, 1986), but recent observations from Mars Global Surveyor (MGS), Mars Express (MEX), and Mars Odyssey (M01) have bun to illustrate the full diversity of their properties and pattern of occurrence. For example, visible wavelength instruments on MGS report, in the near-aphelion daytime equatorial mesosphere at 70-80 km altitude, a diffuse optically thin (tau 0.01) detached haze of 0.3 micron particles that are probably composed of carbon dioxide (Clancy et al., JGR, 2007), while OMEGA on MEX observes, at similar locations and times, horizontally discrete spectroscopically identifiable carbon dioxide clouds with much higher optical depths (tau 0.2) and larger particles ( 1 micron) (Montmessin et al., JGR, 2007). Meanwhile, SPICAM (on MEX) stellar occultations detect optically thin nighttime diffuse hazes near 100 km altitude (Montmessin et al., Icarus, 2006), while visible detector on M01 sees discrete optically thick clouds at 60-80 km altitude in both the daytime equatorial aphelion season and the northern mid-latitude perihelion season (McConnochie, PhD thesis, 2007).
We present measurements of martian mesospheric aerosols from yet another instrument - the TES infrared spectrometer on MGS. This data set is based on three-martian-year campaign of regularly spaced limb observations. Unfortunately, this new data set adds more complexity to our understanding of mesospheric condensates by recording a different type of condensate (water ice) with a completely pattern of occurrence (northern hemisphere fall, at night, with a bias towards mid-latitudes). Fortunately, however, this data set also shows the timing of dust injection into the mesosphere by major dust storms, which may yield insight into some of the mesospheric processes at work.

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