Mars Suface Layer Climatology from Viking and Pathfinder.

Details Mars Suface Layer Climatology from Viking and Pathfinder. Mars Suface Layer Climatology from Viking and Pathfinder.

Apr 2003

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2003eaeja....14750l&link_type=abstract

EGS - AGU - EUG Joint Assembly, Abstracts from the meeting held in Nice, France, 6 - 11 April 2003, abstract #14750

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Scientific paper

The study of mean flow and turbulence of the atmospheric surface boundary layer on Mars have been based on in-situ wind and temperature data from the Viking and Pathfinder missions. Largely the behaviour of surface layer turbulence and mean flow on Mars is found to obey the same scaling laws as on Earth. The largest micrometeorological differences between the two atmospheres are associated with the low air density of the Martian atmosphere. Together with the virtual absence of water vapour, it reduces the importance of the atmospheric heat flux in the surface heat budget. This increases the temperature variation of the surface forcing the near-surface temperature gradient and thereby the diabatic heat flux to higher values than typical on the Earth, resulting in turn in deeper daytime boundary layers. As wind speed is much like that of the Earth, this larger diabatic heat flux is carried mostly by larger maximal values of T*. These basic aspects of the Martian climate are illustrated as diurnal cycles of heat flux, stability and boundary layer heights, derived from parameters from Viking and Pathfinder landers. The Monin-Obuchov scaling laws have been validated and used in the analysis of Martian surface layer data for the relations between standard deviations and power spectra of wind, and temperature turbulence and the corresponding mean values of wind speed and temperature. The usual formulations have been have been found to apply. Examples of data analysis of both Viking and Pathfinder data are presented, and it is pointed out that the uncertainties in comparing Earth and Mars data to some extent is due to that the Earth regression formulas are rarely build to apply to the low measuring heights used on Mars (» l meter or less). The daytime velocity standard-deviation and spectra scale with the boundary layer height, and through this relation these turbulence characteristics support a generally large daytime boundary layer heights expected on Mars due to the high diabatic heating. Acknowledgements: The essential contributions by the deceased Al Seiff and John Mihalov to the analysis of the Pathfinder wind data are gratefully acknowledged and remembered.

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