Small-scale Properties Of Mars Aphelion-season Volcano Clouds, From Combined MGS MOC and TES Measurements

Details Small-scale Properties Of Mars Aphelion-season Volcano Clouds, From Combined MGS MOC and TES Measurements Small-scale Properties Of Mars Aphelion-season Volcano Clouds, From Combined MGS MOC and TES Measurements

Oct 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007dps....39.3105g&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #39, #31.05; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.472

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

We summarize measurements of aphelion cloud physical properties along the MGS ground track, at spatial scales of about 10 km. Starting with a survey of the MOC & TES data base, we chose six well-defined, aphelion-season volcano clouds at Olympus Mons, Ascraeus Mons and Elysium Mons (15 to 25 degrees North latitude). The source images used in this study show bright, convective afternoon clouds and westward extending plumes that have become familiar features of the aphelion cloud belt. By combining MOC and TES optical depth measurements, we were able to retrieve latitude profiles showing self-consistent: 425 nm cloud optical depth, TES extinction optical depth, aerosol particle size and cloud water ice content along the MGS ground track where it traversed the cloudy regions. The retrieval method makes use of the strong particle size dependence of the ice aerosol extinction coefficient at TES wavelengths, as well as a coarse representation of the ice aerosol single-scattering phase function shape versus particle size, derived from a combination of modeling and measurements.
Optical depth at 425 nm was found to exceed 0.7 in all six of the cloud cases, and reaches 1.3 in one of two Olympus Mons examples. Results also show comparable values of TES extinction optical depth. Ice aerosol particle size (i.e., effective radius) appears to be weakly correlated with optical depth; and typically exceeds 4 microns, occasionally reaching 6 microns in the denser cloud cores. At these same locations, cloud vertical water content approaches 4 precipitable microns, or roughly 20% of the atmospheric water vapor column, as measured by TES at this latitude and season.
This work has been supported by the Mars Data Analysis Program.

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