Other
Scientific paper
Sep 2008
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008dps....40.0601h&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #40, #6.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 40, p.395
Other
Scientific paper
On early Mars, a thick ( 80 mb), clear CO2 atmosphere is unstable against collapsing into permanent polar caps. We explore the possibility that the radiative and dynamical effects of airborne dust provide a mechanism to stave off atmospheric collapse. Airborne dust affects the formation and regression of the polar caps by influencing the polar cap heat balance through radiative and dynamical effects. During the polar night, the radiative effects of airborne dust reduce the net radiative loss at the top of the atmosphere, which inhibits CO2 condensation where atmospheric heat transport is negligible. Outside the polar night, two radiative effects compete with each other: the thermal effect of dust through enhanced atmospheric emissivity and the shielding effect of dust, which decreases the amount of sunlight that reaches the surface. While these two effects roughly cancel each other during the course of a day for the current climate, it is unclear whether or not they would balance in a more massive CO2 atmosphere. Increasing the quantity of airborne dust also enhances the atmospheric circulation and increases heat transport into the Polar Regions, which also reduces the condensation rate of CO2. We will utilize the NASA Ames Mars General Circulation Model with varying initial inventories of CO2 gas and atmospheric dust to examine the radiative and dynamical effects of airborne dust in thick CO2 atmospheres in the presence of a faint young sun. Our goal is to understand the role of the dust cycle in the stabilization of the early Mars climate system.
Haberle Robert M.
Kahre Melinda A.
Leovy Conway B.
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