Physics
Scientific paper
Dec 2005
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2005agufm.p13b0146w&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2005, abstract #P13B-0146
Physics
1862 Sediment Transport (4558), 3337 Global Climate Models (1626, 4928), 3346 Planetary Meteorology (5445, 5739), 3360 Remote Sensing
Scientific paper
Dust devils are known to occur on Mars. While they have different frequencies from location to location, active dust devils and their tracks have been seen at all elevations and latitudes on Mars. The Mars Exploration Rover, Spirit, landed in Gusev crater in an area populated with inferred dust devil tracks, and has imaged more than 200 active dust devils. A comparative analysis of dust devil track densities from orbital data in Gusev crater and Ares Vallis (the landing site for Mars Pathfinder) shows that Gusev crater has more dust devil tracks per square kilometer than Ares Vallis. Neither location, however, has a dust devil track density within an order of magnitude of those in The Hellas Basin or Argyre Planitia. There is a latitudinal dependency in dust devil activity that is inferred from dust devil track densities. There is more dust devil activity, and consequently more dust lifted by dust devils, in the southern hemisphere than in the north. Dust devil seasons are times of the year when there are more dust devil tracks than average and dust devil activity is assumed to occur. Dust devil track frequencies show that the northern and southern hemispheres have a dust devil season that starts in late spring (Ls=60° and 240°, northern and southern hemispheres respectively) and continues through the summer into mid fall (Ls=210° and 30°, northern and southern hemispheres respectively). However the dust devil track density in the southern hemisphere is on average ~0.6 dd/km2 while the northern hemisphere averages a density of ~0.06 dd/km2. The poles and the equator have an even lower average dust devil track densities of ~0.04 dd/km2. Latitudes with the highest dust devil track densities (in the northern and southern hemispheres) are aligned with the ascending branches of their respective summer solstice Hadley cell. Surfaces near the ascending branches experience low pressure and low wind speeds (0 to 5m/s), conditions that are intuitively conducive to dust devil formation. Southern summer, however, receives 40% more solar energy for atmospheric motion and dust devil formation than northern summer (due to the eccentricity of Mars's orbit). Less energy available for dust devil activity results in a smaller number of dust devils and a lower dust devil track density in the northern hemisphere and accounts for the large hemispheric difference in dust devil track density on Mars.
Greeley Ronald
Whelley Patrick L.
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