Plausible Forms of Carbon Dioxide Ice Clouds in the Lower Atmosphere of Mars

Details Plausible Forms of Carbon Dioxide Ice Clouds in the Lower Atmosphere of Mars Plausible Forms of Carbon Dioxide Ice Clouds in the Lower Atmosphere of Mars

Dec 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007agufm.p11a0256m&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2007, abstract #P11A-0256

Physics

3311 Clouds And Aerosols, 3314 Convective Processes, 5405 Atmospheres (0343, 1060), 5445 Meteorology (3346), 5462 Polar Regions

Scientific paper

Observations supporting the suspected presence of clouds composed of carbon dioxide ice crystals in the lower atmosphere of Mars date to at least the early part of the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) mission. Intriguing MOLA laser ranging results in the polar night indicate the nearly undeniable presence of populations of unidentified aerosol particles capable of reflecting or absorbing/scattering a significant portion of the near-infrared laser pulse. Furthermore, MGS radio science temperature retrievals in the polar night often exhibit regions aloft where the air temperature is significantly less than the carbon dioxide ice saturation temperature. Since observations able to concretely confirm or refute the existence of such clouds are still elusive, numerical models must be used to explore the hypothesis further. A microscale numerical model with detailed cloud microphysics capability should be able to provide valuable insight on the plausible form(s), environmental sensitivities, and climatic impacts of such carbon dioxide ice clouds. Results from investigations using such a model will be presented. This work is supported by a grant from the NASA Mars Fundamental Research Program.

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