A catalog of convective vortex encounters recorded by InSight on the Martian surface is presented, through Sol 390 of the mission. The catalog summarizes key meteorological parameters such as wind ...speed and direction before the event, peak wind, the duration and magnitude of the pressure excursion, temperatures and solar array data where present. Additional seismic parameters are also provided on seismometer-detected ground acceleration. The catalog is intended as a resource for vortex population studies, and as an index for examining these meteorological events in detail and to assess possible geophysical (seismic or magnetic) signatures. Whereas it is difficult to evaluate ‘anecdotal’ results in small surveys, the large number of events (853 with a pressure drop exceeding 0.8 Pa) in this work permits robust statistical evaluation. For example, it is found that three times as many pressure profiles have slower onsets than decays than vice versa, indicating an asymmetry in the surface pressure field due to the tilted advection of the vortex by ambient wind. A vortex area fraction of 0.07% during the most active six hours of the day is deduced.
•Presents catalog of 853 vortex events at InSight, providing pressure, temperature and wind histories•Large dataset permits statistical assessement of vortex properties•A leading/trailing asymmetry in pressure profiles is noted
•We use the MarsWRF GCM to simulate dust cycles with finite surface dust available.•We seek a long term steady state set of lifting parameters and dust distribution.•A quasi-steady state period has ...many realistic features of storms and variability.•A long term steady state is achieved by including a variable threshold feedback.•The surface dust distribution shows some differences to that inferred for Mars.
Observations of albedo on Mars suggest a largely invariant long-term mean surface dust distribution, but also reveal variations on shorter (seasonal to annual) timescales, particularly associated with major dust storms. We study the impact of finite surface dust availability on the dust cycle in the MarsWRF General Circulation Model (GCM), which uses radiatively active dust with parameterized ‘dust devil’ and wind stress dust lifting to enable the spontaneous production of dust storms, and tracks budgets of dust lifting, deposition, and total surface dust inventory. We seek a self-consistent, long-term ‘steady state’ dust cycle for present day Mars, consisting of (a) a surface dust distribution that varies from year to year but is constant longer-term and in balance with current dust redistribution processes, and (b) a fixed set of dust lifting parameters that continue to produce major storms for this distribution of surface dust. We relax the GCM’s surface dust inventory toward this steady state using an iterative process, in which dust lifting rate parameters are increased as progressively more surface sites are exhausted of dust. Late in the equilibration process, the GCM exhibits quasi-steady state behavior in which few new surface grid points are exhausted during a 60year period with constant dust lifting parameters. Complex regional-scale dust redistribution occurs on time-scales from less than seasonal to decadal, and the GCM generates regional to global dust storms with many realistic features. These include merging regional storms, cross-equatorial storms, and the timing and location of several storm types, though very early major storms and large amounts of late storm activity are not reproduced. Surface dust availability in key onset and growth source regions appears vital for ‘early’ major storms, with replenishment of these regions required before another large storm can occur, whereas ‘late’ major storms appear primarily dependent on atmospheric variability. For the parameter space explored, no simulation achieves a steady state with continuing major storms lasting longer than 60years when a constant wind stress lifting threshold is used. However, such a long-term steady state is achieved when a variable threshold is introduced, in which the threshold increases as dust is removed. This negative feedback on lifting slows it sufficiently for a balance to be produced between dust removal and re-deposition, even in key source regions for major storms. One concern is that the long-term surface dust distributions produced in these simulations show significant differences to the observed northern hemisphere albedo map, in particular predicting Tharsis and NE Arabia to be relatively dust-free. Although some observed high albedo regions may not have significant mobile dust, others likely have a dust cover several meters thick. The mismatches may reflect deficiencies in the GCM or the iterative process used, or the existence of ancient deep dust deposits formed during a past climate epoch.
Mars 2020 Mission Overview Farley, Kenneth A.; Williford, Kenneth H.; Stack, Kathryn M. ...
Space science reviews,
12/2020, Volume:
216, Issue:
8
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
The Mars 2020 mission will seek the signs of ancient life on Mars and will identify, prepare, document, and cache a set of samples for possible return to Earth by a follow-on mission. Mars 2020 and ...its
Perseverance
rover thus link and further two long-held goals in planetary science: a deep search for evidence of life in a habitable extraterrestrial environment, and the return of martian samples to Earth for analysis in terrestrial laboratories.
The Mars 2020 spacecraft is based on the design of the highly successful Mars Science Laboratory and its
Curiosity
rover, but outfitted with a sophisticated suite of new science instruments. Ground-penetrating radar will illuminate geologic structures in the shallow subsurface, while a multi-faceted weather station will document martian environmental conditions. Several instruments can be used individually or in tandem to map the color, texture, chemistry, and mineralogy of rocks and regolith at the meter scale and at the submillimeter scale. The science instruments will be used to interpret the geology of the landing site, to identify habitable paleoenvironments, to seek ancient textural, elemental, mineralogical and organic biosignatures, and to locate and characterize the most promising samples for Earth return. Once selected, ∼35 samples of rock and regolith weighing about 15 grams each will be drilled directly into ultraclean and sterile sample tubes.
Perseverance
will also collect blank sample tubes to monitor the evolving rover contamination environment.
In addition to its scientific instruments,
Perseverance
hosts technology demonstrations designed to facilitate future Mars exploration. These include a device to generate oxygen gas by electrolytic decomposition of atmospheric carbon dioxide, and a small helicopter to assess performance of a rotorcraft in the thin martian atmosphere.
Mars 2020 entry, descent, and landing (EDL) will use the same approach that successfully delivered
Curiosity
to the martian surface, but with several new features that enable the spacecraft to land at previously inaccessible landing sites. A suite of cameras and a microphone will for the first time capture the sights and sounds of EDL.
Mars 2020’s landing site was chosen to maximize scientific return of the mission for astrobiology and sample return. Several billion years ago Jezero crater held a 40 km diameter, few hundred-meter-deep lake, with both an inflow and an outflow channel. A prominent delta, fine-grained lacustrine sediments, and carbonate-bearing rocks offer attractive targets for habitability and for biosignature preservation potential. In addition, a possible volcanic unit in the crater and impact megabreccia in the crater rim, along with fluvially-deposited clasts derived from the large and lithologically diverse headwaters terrain, contribute substantially to the science value of the sample cache for investigations of the history of Mars and the Solar System. Even greater diversity, including very ancient aqueously altered rocks, is accessible in a notional rover traverse that ascends out of Jezero crater and explores the surrounding Nili Planum.
Mars 2020 is conceived as the first element of a multi-mission Mars Sample Return campaign. After Mars 2020 has cached the samples, a follow-on mission consisting of a fetch rover and a rocket could retrieve and package them, and then launch the package into orbit. A third mission could capture the orbiting package and return it to Earth. To facilitate the sample handoff,
Perseverance
could deposit its collection of filled sample tubes in one or more locations, called depots, on the planet’s surface. Alternatively, if
Perseverance
remains functional, it could carry some or all the samples directly to the retrieval spacecraft.
The Mars 2020 mission and its
Perseverance
rover launched from the Eastern Range at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, on July 30, 2020. Landing at Jezero Crater will occur on Feb 18, 2021 at about 12:30 PM Pacific Time.
A new planetary atmospheric numerical model, “planetWRF,” has been developed by modifying the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The model has generalized map projection, multiscale, and ...nesting capabilities, blurring the distinction between global and mesoscale models and enabling investigation of coupling between processes on all scales, including global. The model can also be run in one, two, or three dimensions. The conversion of the dynamical core for global application by altering the map projection grid and the boundary conditions as well as conversion of the physics parameterizations and constants for planetary application are described. Validation of the global dynamical core through use of standard forcing scenarios is presented. Example results from a series of simulations for Mars, Titan, and Venus are shown to demonstrate that the model performs well for a variety of planets and operating modes (microscale, mesoscale, and global scale).
•This paper presents the first wind measurements in an active dune field on Mars.•Daytime upslope/nighttime downslope flows dominate in winter on the slopes of Aeolis Mons.•The mid-morning and ...evening wind rotates rapidly and generally clockwise between these directions.•Wind blocking and wind speed distribution broadening occurs in the lee of a dune.•Mesoscale modeling captures the general pattern of wind speed and direction.
A high density of REMS wind measurements were collected in three science investigations during MSL's Bagnold Dunes Campaign, which took place over ∼80 sols around southern winter solstice (Ls∼90°) and constituted the first in situ analysis of the environmental conditions, morphology, structure, and composition of an active dune field on Mars. The Wind Characterization Investigation was designed to fully characterize the near-surface wind field just outside the dunes and confirmed the primarily upslope/downslope flow expected from theory and modeling of the circulation on the slopes of Aeolis Mons in this season. The basic pattern of winds is ‘upslope’ (from the northwest, heading up Aeolis Mons) during the daytime (∼09:00–17:00 or 18:00) and ‘downslope’ (from the southeast, heading down Aeolis Mons) at night (∼20:00 to some time before 08:00). Between these times the wind rotates largely clockwise, giving generally westerly winds mid-morning and easterly winds in the early evening. The timings of these direction changes are relatively consistent from sol to sol; however, the wind direction and speed at any given time shows considerable intersol variability. This pattern and timing is similar to predictions from the MarsWRF numerical model, run at a resolution of ∼490m in this region, although the model predicts the upslope winds to have a stronger component from the E than the W, misses a wind speed peak at ∼09:00, and under-predicts the strength of daytime wind speeds by ∼2–4m/s. The Namib Dune Lee Investigation reveals ‘blocking’ of northerly winds by the dune, leaving primarily a westerly component to the daytime winds, and also shows a broadening of the 1Hz wind speed distribution likely associated with lee turbulence. The Namib Dune Side Investigation measured primarily daytime winds at the side of the same dune, in support of aeolian change detection experiments designed to put limits on the saltation threshold, and also appears to show the influence of the dune body on the local flow, though less clearly than in the lee. Using a vertical grid with lower resolution near the surface reduces the relative strength of nighttime winds predicted by MarsWRF and produces a peak in wind speed at ∼09:00, improving the match to the observed diurnal variation of wind speed, albeit with an offset in magnitude. The annual wind field predicted using this grid also provides a far better match to observations of aeolian dune morphology and motion in the Bagnold Dunes. However, the lower overall wind speeds than observed and disagreement with the observed wind direction at ∼09:00 suggest that the problem has not been solved and that alternative boundary layer mixing schemes should be explored which may result in more mixing of momentum down to the near-surface from higher layers. These results demonstrate a strong need for in situ wind data to constrain the setup and assumptions used in numerical models, so that they may be used with more confidence to predict the circulation at other times and locations on Mars.
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•We use the 3D TitanWRF General Circulation Model to simulate Titan’s methanecycle.•An active tropospheric methane cycle slightly weakens stratospheric superrotation.•Peak condensation is tied to (a) ...spring/summer polar upwelling and (b) the ITCZ.•Latent heat feedback alters surface/near-surface temperatures and the circulation.•More surface methane accumulates at the pole for which perihelion occurs in winter.
Observations provide increasing evidence of a methane hydrological cycle on Titan. Earth-based and Cassini-based monitoring has produced data on the seasonal variation in cloud activity and location, with clouds being observed at increasingly low latitudes as Titan moved out of southern summer. Lakes are observed at high latitudes, with far larger lakes and greater areal coverage in the northern hemisphere, where some shorelines extend down as far as 50°N. Rainfall at some point in the past is suggested by the pattern of flow features on the surface at the Huygens landing site, while recent rainfall is suggested by surface change. As with the water cycle on Earth, the methane cycle on Titan is both impacted by tropospheric dynamics and likely able to impact this circulation via feedbacks. Here we use the 3D TitanWRF General Circulation Model (GCM) to simulate Titan’s methane cycle. In this initial work we use a simple large-scale condensation scheme with latent heat feedbacks and a finite surface reservoir of methane, and focus on large-scale dynamical interactions between the atmospheric circulation and methane, and how these impact seasonal changes and the long term (steady state) behavior of the methane cycle. We note five major conclusions: (1) Condensation and precipitation in the model is sporadic in nature, with interannual variability in its timing and location, but tends to occur in association with both (a) frequent strong polar upwelling during spring and summer in each hemisphere, and (b) the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), a region of increased convergence and upwelling due to the seasonally shifting Hadley cells. (2) An active tropospheric methane cycle affects the stratospheric circulation, slightly weakening the stratospheric superrotation produced. (3) Latent heating feedback strongly influences surface and near-surface temperatures, narrowing the latitudinal range of the ITCZ, and changing the distribution – and generally weakening the strength – of upwelling events. (4) TitanWRF favors low latitude ‘cloudiness’ around northern spring equinox as the ITCZ moves from south to north across the equator, versus the opposite time of year. (5) TitanWRF produces drying of low and mid latitudes with net transport of surface methane to high latitudes, and shows persistent hemispheric asymmetry in the methane cycle such that the favored pole for surface methane is the one with winter occurring closest to perihelion.
Atmospheric oscillations with daily periodicity are observed in in-situ near-surface pressure, temperature, and winds observations, and also in remotely sensed temperature and pressure observations ...of the Martian atmosphere. Such oscillations are interpreted as thermal tides driven by the diurnal cycle of solar radiation and occur at various frequencies, with the most prominent being the diurnal, semidiurnal, terdiurnal and quadiurnal tides. Mars global circulation models reproduce these tides with varying levels of success. Until recently, both the MarsWRF and newly developed MarsMPAS models were able to produce realistic diurnal and semidiurnal tide amplitudes but predicted higher-order mode amplitudes that were significantly weaker than observed. We use linear wave analysis to show that the divergence damping applied within both MarsWRF and MarsMPAS is responsible for suppressing the amplitude of thermal tides with frequency greater than 2 per sol, despite being designed to suppress only acoustic wave modes. Decreasing the strength of the divergence damping in MarsWRF and MarsMPAS allows for excellent prediction of the higher order tidal modes. This finding demonstrates that care must be taken when applying numerical dampers and filters that may eliminate some desired dynamical features in planetary atmospheres.
► We examine the impact of resolution on simulation of the martian general circulation. ► A vertical split in northern winter circulation forms between low synoptic and global meso-scales. ► Northern ...winter primarily sensitive to zonal resolution and hence representation of eddies. ► Increased resolution superposes topographic circulations on large-scale surface winds. ► Dust lifting is increasingly sensitive to resolution as stress threshold increases.
We investigate the sensitivity of the circulation and thermal structure of the martian atmosphere to numerical model resolution in a general circulation model (GCM) using the martian implementation (MarsWRF) of the planetWRF atmospheric model. We provide a description of the MarsWRF GCM and use it to study the global atmosphere at horizontal resolutions from 7.5°×9° to 0.5°×0.5°, encompassing the range from standard Mars GCMs to global mesoscale modeling. We find that while most of the gross-scale features of the circulation (the rough location of jets, the qualitative thermal structure, and the major large-scale features of the surface level winds) are insensitive to horizontal resolution over this range, several major features of the circulation are sensitive in detail. The northern winter polar circulation shows the greatest sensitivity, showing a continuous transition from a smooth polar winter jet at low resolution, to a distinct vertically “split” jet as resolution increases. The separation of the lower and middle atmosphere polar jet occurs at roughly 10Pa, with the split jet structure developing in concert with the intensification of meridional jets at roughly 10Pa and above 0.1Pa. These meridional jets appear to represent the separation of lower and middle atmosphere mean overturning circulations (with the former being consistent with the usual concept of the “Hadley cell”). Further, the transition in polar jet structure is more sensitive to changes in zonal than meridional horizontal resolution, suggesting that representation of small-scale wave-mean flow interactions is more important than fine-scale representation of the meridional thermal gradient across the polar front. Increasing the horizontal resolution improves the match between the modeled thermal structure and the Mars Climate Sounder retrievals for northern winter high latitudes. While increased horizontal resolution also improves the simulation of the northern high latitudes at equinox, even the lowest model resolution considered here appears to do a good job for the southern winter and southern equinoctial pole (although in detail some discrepancies remain). These results suggest that studies of the northern winter jet (e.g., transient waves and cyclogenesis) will be more sensitive to global model resolution that those of the south (e.g., the confining dynamics of the southern polar vortex relevant to studies of argon transport). For surface winds, the major effect of increased horizontal resolution is in the superposition of circulations forced by local-scale topography upon the large-scale surface wind patterns. While passive predictions of dust lifting are generally insensitive to model horizontal resolution when no lifting threshold is considered, increasing the stress threshold produces significantly more lifting in higher resolution simulations with the generation of finer-scale, higher-stress winds due primarily to better-resolved topography. Considering the positive feedbacks expected for radiatively active dust lifting, we expect this bias to increase when such feedbacks are permitted.
The degradation in electrical output of solar arrays on Mars landers and rovers is reviewed. A loss of 0.2% per Sol is typical, although observed rates of decrease in ‘dust factor’ vary between 0.05% ...and 2% per Sol. 0.2%/Sol has been observed throughout the first 800 Sols of the ongoing InSight mission, as well as the shorter Mars Pathfinder and Phoenix missions. This rate was also evident for much of the Spirit and Opportunity missions, but the degradation there was episodically reversed by cleaning events due to dust devils and gusts. The enduring success of those rover missions may have given an impression of the long-term viability of solar power on the Martian surface that is not globally-applicable: the occurrence of cleaning events with an operationally-useful frequency seems contingent upon local meteorological circumstances. The conditions for significant cleaning events have apparently not been realized at the InSight landing site, where, notably, dust devils have not been detected in imaging. Optical obscuration by dust deposition and removal has also been observed by ultraviolet sensors on Curiosity, with a similar (but slightly higher) degradation rate. The observations are compared with global circulation model (GCM) results: these predict a geographically somewhat uniform dust deposition rate, while there is some indication that the locations where cleaning events were more frequent may be associated with weaker background winds and a deeper planetary boundary layer. The conventional Dust Devil Activity metric in GCMs does not effectively predict the different dust histories.
•Presents solar array dust factor evolution for 6 landed missions.•Evaluates statistics of solar array output decline, typically 0.2%/Sol but ranging 0.05–2%/Sol.•Determines statistics of cleaning events.•Compares evolution with meteorological predictions at the different landing sites.
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