Year-to-year instability of the Mars south polar CAP

Details Year-to-year instability of the Mars south polar CAP Year-to-year instability of the Mars south polar CAP

Feb 1990

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1990jgr....95.1359j&link_type=abstract

Journal of Geophysical Research (ISSN 0148-0227), vol. 95, Feb. 10, 1990, p. 1359-1365. Research supported by NASA.

Physics

38

Annual Variations, Energy Budgets, Mars Atmosphere, Mars Surface, Polar Caps, Carbon Dioxide, Surface Temperature, Viking Orbiter Spacecraft, Water Vapor, Mars, Polar Regions, Polar Caps, Stability, Models, Energy, Frost, Carbon Dioxide, Subsurface, Conductivity, Condensation, Water Vapor, Abundance, Seasonal Variations, Composition, Parameters, Procedure

Scientific paper

Models of the Mars polar cap energy balance suggest that the south cap has two possible configurations at the current epoch. It can be covered all year by CO2 frost, as was observed by the Viking spacecraft, or the CO2 frost can disappear at midsummer to expose an underlying surface. The difference between the two states depends on the role of energy conducted into the subsurface. If the cap was exposed the previous year, conducted energy will cause less CO2 frost to condense in winter, and the frost will disappear completely in summer. If the cap was covered the previous year, there will be no conducted energy, and it will stay covered again. Subtle effects in the atmosphere can perturb the cap energy balance sufficiently to cause the cap to jump between states. This behavior might provide an explanation for the large southern summer water vapor abundances observed in 1969. It also explains the observed differences between the north and the south residual caps as resulting in part from a difference in the role in the annual energy balance of energy conducted into the subsurface.

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