HR: 16:45h
AN: P24A-06    [Abstracts]
TI: The Simulation of Transient Eddies and Frontal Systems in the Martian Atmosphere
AU: * Wilson, J
EM: John.Wilson@noaa.gov
AF: NOAA/Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, P.O. Box 308, Princeton, NJ 08542 United States
AU: Wang, H
EM: hqw@gps.caltech.edu
AF: Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, MS 150-21, Pasadena, CA 91125 United States
AU: Smith, M D
EM: Michael.D.Smith@nasa.gov
AF: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 693, Greenbelt, MD 20771 United States
AU: Hinson, D P
EM: dhinson@stanford.edu
AF: Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, 350 Serra Hall, Stanford, CA 94305 United States
AB: The initiation and evolution of a number of regional scale dust storms has been documented in detail with MOC imagery and with TES temperature and dust opacity observations. These storms are evidently associated with traveling waves embedded in the strong westerly jet that is present in the northern hemisphere in the fall, winter and spring seasons. The most prominent storms occurred in the low topography regions (Acidalia, Arcadia and Utopia) within two seasonal windows (Ls=200-240 and Ls =305-340) before and after northern winter solstice. In particular, a large regional storm was observed in early December 2003 (Ls=309). This storm originated in the northern hemisphere and moved southward to the equator in the longitude sector east of Tharsis in the same fashion as storms in preceding years. Upon reaching low latitudes, this dust storm rapidly intensified and spread, yielding the highest dust optical depths at low to mid southern latitudes. It appears that these flushing storms are present in most Mars years and significantly contribute to the seasonally-varying envelope of background dust opacity and global mean temperature. We will present a study of the climatology of traveling baroclinic wave behavior present in annual cycle simulations of the martian atmosphere using the GFDL Mars general circulation model (MGCM). In general, we find that zonal waves 2 and 3 are favored in the NH fall and late winter seasons, as observed, and that these waves are modulated by topography to favor storm development in the low elevation regions. We will also show high-resolution simulations with surface stress dependent interactive dust lifting that provide insight into the storm intensification stage as dust is transported southward in these basins. The inclusion of predicted water ice clouds provides an additional means of comparing the simulated circulations with observed dust and water ice cloud morphologies.
UR: http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/~rjw
DE: 3346 Planetary meteorology (5445, 5739)
DE: 5409 Atmospheres--structure and dynamics
DE: 5445 Meteorology (3346)
DE: 6225 Mars
SC: Planetary Sciences [P]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly