Eight-year climatology of dust optical depth on Mars

By L. Montabone, Francois Forget, Ehouarn Millour, Robert J. Wilson, S. R. Lewis, B. Cantor, D. Kass, A. Kleinboehl, Mark T. Lemmon, Michael D. Smith and 1 more. 2014

473 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract We have produced a multiannual climatology of airborne dust from martian year 24–31 using multiple datasets of retrieved or estimated column optical depths. The datasets are based on observations of the martian atmosphere from April 1999 to July 2013 made by different orbiting instruments: the Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) aboard Mars Global Surveyor, the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) aboard Mars Odyssey, and the Mars Climate Sounder (MCS) aboard Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The procedure we have adopted consists of gridding the available retrievals of column dust optical depth (CDOD) from TES and THEMIS nadir observations, as well as the estimates of this quantity from MCS limb observations. Our gridding method calculates averages and uncertainties on a regularly spaced spatio-temporal grid, using an iterative procedure that is weighted in space, time, and retrieval quality. The lack of observations at certain times and locations introduces missing grid points in the maps, which therefore may result in irregularly gridded (i.e. incomplete) fields. In order to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the resulting gridded maps, we compare with independent observations of CDOD by PanCam cameras and Mini-TES spectrometers aboard the Mars Exploration Rovers “Spirit” and “Opportunity”, by the Surface Stereo Imager aboard the Phoenix lander, and by the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars aboard MRO. We have statistically analyzed the irregularly gridded maps to provide an overview of the dust climatology on Mars over eight years, specifically in relation to its interseasonal and interannual variability, in addition to provide a basis for instrument intercomparison. Finally, we have produced regularly gridded maps of CDOD by spatially interpolating the irregularly gridded maps using a kriging method. These complete maps are used as dust scenarios in the Mars Climate Database (MCD) version 5, and are useful in many modeling applications. The two datasets for the eight available martian years are publicly available and distributed with open access on the MCD website.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c4357c8f651f3f0d5f7fa4f61a8ffa1353743a32

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

Citations in the corpus

Martian Year 34 Column Dust Climatology from Mars Climate Sounder Observations: Reconstructed Maps and Model Simulations (2019, methodology): “We note that, following the Montabone et al. (2015) sol-based Martian calendar (see their Appendix A for a description), MY 34 has 668 sols, therefore we provide 668 gridded maps —”
The Modern Near-Surface Martian Climate: A Review of In-situ Meteorological Data from Viking to Curiosity (2017, background): “On a global scale, the most vigorous dust activity and the resulting largest dust opacity values occur during southern spring and summer (Martin 1986; Smith 2004, 2008; Montabone et al. 2015), when regional dust storms persist throughout the southern hemisphere and the northern baroclinic zone.”
NOMAD, an Integrated Suite of Three Spectrometers for the ExoMars Trace Gas Mission: Technical Description, Science Objectives and Expected Performance (2018, background): “Distinct and generally repeatable patterns occur each year in pressure, carbon dioxide deposition, temperature, aerosol (dust and water ice cloud) optical depth, and gas abundance, but there are also signiﬁcant inter-annual variations (Clancy et al. 2016; Montabone et al. 2015; Smith et al. 2018).”