Why is the north polar CAP on Mars different than the south polar cap?

Details Why is the north polar CAP on Mars different than the south polar cap? Why is the north polar CAP on Mars different than the south polar cap?

Feb 1994

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1994rmus.nasat....l&link_type=abstract

In its Reanalysis of Mariner 9 UV Spectrometer Data for Ozone, Cloud, and Dust Abundances, and Their Interaction Over Climate Ti

Computer Science

Asymmetry, Carbon Dioxide, Dust, Environment Models, Ice, Ice Formation, Mars Atmosphere, Mars Environment, Mars Surface, Ozone, Polar Caps, Polar Regions, Sublimation, Water, Albedo, Annual Variations, Atmospheric Pressure, Solar Position, Viking Mars Program, Zenith

Scientific paper

One of the most puzzling mysteries about the planet Mars is the hemispherical asymmetry in the polar caps. Every spring the seasonal polar cap of CO2 recedes until the end of summer, when only a small part, the residual polar cap, remains. During the year that Viking observed Mars, the residual polar cap was composed of water ice in the northern hemisphere but was primarily carbon dioxide ice in the southern hemisphere. Scientists have sought to explain this asymmetry by modeling observations of the latitudinal recession of the polar cap and seasonal variations in atmospheric pressure (since the seasonal polar caps are primarily frozen atmosphere, they are directly related to changes in atmospheric mass). These models reproduce most aspects of the observed annual variation in atmospheric pressure fairly accurately. Furthermore, the predicted latitudinal recession of the northern polar cap in the spring agrees well with observations, including the fact that the CO2 ice is predicted to completely sublime away. However, these models all predict that the carbon dioxide ice will also sublime away during the summer in the southern hemisphere, unlike what is observed. This paper will show how the radiative effects of ozone, clouds, airborne dust, light penetration into and through the polar cap, and the dependence of albedo on solar zenith angle affect CO2 ice formation and sublimation, and how they help explain the hemispherical asymmetry in the residual polar caps. These effects have not been studied with prior polar cap models.

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