Examining Buoyancy Waves in the Martian Atmosphere with Mars Climate Sounder

Details Examining Buoyancy Waves in the Martian Atmosphere with Mars Climate Sounder Examining Buoyancy Waves in the Martian Atmosphere with Mars Climate Sounder

Oct 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010dps....42.3007e&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #42, #30.07; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.1028

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Bouyancy ('gravity') waves can potentially play a significant role in the dynamics of the Martian atmosphere (Barnes, 1990). Small wave disturbances created at the surface (i.e. topographically) or at low altitudes (ex. convection) can propagate vertically under the appropriate thermodynamic conditions. To conserve energy, the amplitude of small waves can grow substantially in response to decreasing densities at higher altitudes. Gravity waves in the upper atmosphere have been analyzed from atmospheric densities derived from aerobarking Martian spacecraft (Creasey et al., 2006b & Fritts et al., 2006). Potentially large wave amplitudes aloft can result in wave saturation and wave breaking (Lindzen, 1981). The breaking waves deposit momentum, potentially altering the winds at that breaking level substantially. Creasey et al. (2006a) investigated the amplitudes of Martian atmospheric gravity waves by attempting to determine their manifested temperature perturbations as derived from Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) radio occultation measurements. Their results showed little correlation between topographic variance and gravitational wave energy. Motivated by this result, we are interested in how wave energies derived from Mars Climate Sounder (MCS) limb radiance measurements compare to the MGS Radio Science (RS) results. The continuous nature of the MCS measurements offer the opportunity to systematically investigate buoyancy wave characteristics diurnally, seasonally, and geographically, and to do so to a higher altitude (lower pressure) than the MGS RS profiles afforded. The MCS data used in this work is made publicly available through NASA's Planetary Data System's Atmospheres Node.
This work is supported by NSF Grant ATM-0535811 (Univ. of Michigan), NMSU subcontract 3000615888
Barnes, J.R., 1990, JGR, 95, B2, 1401-1421.
Creasey, J.E., et al., 2006, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L01803.
Creasey, J.E., et al., 2006, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L22814.
Fritts, D.C., et al., 2006, JGR, 111, A12304.
Lindzen, R.S., 1981, JGR, 86, C10, 9707-9714.

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