Statistics – Methodology
Scientific paper
Dec 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011agufm.p43c1693b&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2011, abstract #P43C-1693
Statistics
Methodology
[0343] Atmospheric Composition And Structure / Planetary Atmospheres, [3307] Atmospheric Processes / Boundary Layer Processes, [5405] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets / Atmospheres, [6225] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Mars
Scientific paper
Dust devils are convective vortices made visible by the dust and debris they entrain. They are most common in arid environments and have been observed on Earth and Mars. Martian dust devils have been identified both in images taken at the surface and in remote sensing observations from orbiting spacecraft. Observations from orbiting instruments that can acquire multiple images in rapid succession (e.g. the ESA Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera) have allowed the translational forward motion of dust devils to be calculated: martian dust devils travel across the landscape at speeds of up to tens of metres per second. However, it is unclear how these velocities relate to the local ambient wind conditions, as on Earth only anecdotal evidence exists that ties dust devil forward motion with local wind speed. If dust devil translational velocity can be reliably correlated to local winds, observations of dust devils could provide a proxy for wind speed measurements on Mars, and hence provide an important tool for testing mesoscale climate models. Here we present results from a field study of terrestrial dust devils performed in the southwest USA that seeks to measure dust devil horizontal velocity as a function of wind speed. We acquired stereo images of several hundred active dust devils and hence produced multiple size and position measurements for each dust devil. We used these data to calculate dust devil translational velocity. The dust devils we measured were within a study area bounded by three 10m meteorology towers. Hence we were able to correlate dust devil speed and direction with the local ambient wind speed and direction. We found that instantaneous dust devil translational velocity correlated well with instantaneous local ambient wind velocity. Day-averaged dust devil translational velocity correlated very well with day-averaged (between 11am and 5pm) ambient wind velocity. We found that dust devil horizontal speed is about 1.2 times the ambient 10 m height wind speed. If a similar methodology and result can be applied on Mars then we suggest that dust devils can indeed be used there as proxy measurements for local wind speed.
Balme Matthew R.
Elliott M. H.
Fenton Lori K.
Metzger Steffen
Michaels Timothy I.
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