Mesoscale Atmosphere Model Implementation into Mars Science Laboratory Performance Simulations
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Introduction: Previous recent entries at Mars, like Pathfinder, Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) and Phoenix, were ballistic and therefore had smaller downrange distances between entry and touchdown compared to the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) guided entry. See Figure 1. Consequently “handcrafted” vertical profiles of the atmosphere at the landing site, tailored for the expected conditions on the day of entry by individuals, were sufficient for the trajectory simulations used to design the earlier missions.Keywords:
Touchdown
Atmosphere of Mars
Phoenix
Mars landing
Pathfinder
Atmospheric entry
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Atmosphere of Mars
Atmospheric models
Atmospheric entry
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Abstract Atmospheric local-to-regional dispersion models are widely used on Earth to predict and study the effects of chemical species emitted into the atmosphere and to contextualize sparse data acquired at particular locations and/or times. However, to date, no local-to-regional dispersion models for Mars have been developed; only mesoscale/microscale meteorological models have some dispersion and chemical capabilities, but they do not offer the versatility of a dedicated atmospheric dispersion model when studying the dispersion of chemical species in the atmosphere, as it is performed on Earth. Here, a new three-dimensional local-to-regional-scale Eulerian atmospheric dispersion model for Mars (DISVERMAR) that can simulate emissions to the Martian atmosphere from particular locations or regions including chemical loss and predefined deposition rates, is presented. The model can deal with topography and non-uniform grids. As a case study, the model is applied to the simulation of methane spikes as detected by NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL); this choice is made given the strong interest in and controversy regarding the detection and variability of this chemical species on Mars.
Atmosphere of Mars
Microscale chemistry
Atmospheric models
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Recent advances in high-speed computers have given atmospheric scientists a new laboratory in which to work. Numerical models of the Earth's atmosphere and its dynamics have provided great insight. Given the lack of observations of the martian atmosphere it is natural to apply such models to help us understand aspects of, for instance, large-scale circulation patterns. A global circulation model of the Earth's atmosphere was modified for use with martian parameters and the relevant regimes of planetary flow were studied.
Atmosphere of Mars
Atmospheric Circulation
Circulation (fluid dynamics)
Atmospheric models
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This report presents Mars Global Reference Atmospheric Model 2000 Version (Mars-GRAM 2000) and its new features. All parameterizations for temperature, pressure, density, and winds versus height, latitude, longitude, time of day, and L(sub s) have been replaced by input data tables from NASA Ames Mars General Circulation Model (MGCM) for the surface through 80-km altitude and the University of Arizona Mars Thermospheric General Circulation Model (MTGCM) for 80 to 170 km. A modified Stewart thermospheric model is still used for higher altitudes and for dependence on solar activity. Climate factors to tune for agreement with GCM data are no longer needed. Adjustment of exospheric temperature is still an option. Consistent with observations from Mars Global Surveyor, a new longitude-dependent wave model is included with user input to specify waves having 1 to 3 wavelengths around the planet. A simplified perturbation model has been substituted for the earlier one. An input switch allows users to select either East or West longitude positive. This memorandum includes instructions on obtaining Mars-GRAM source code and data files and for running the program. It also provides sample input and output and an example for incorporating Mars-GRAM as an atmospheric subroutine in a trajectory code.
Longitude
Atmosphere of Mars
Atmospheric models
Atmospheric models
Atmospheric Circulation
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Dust storm
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The Mars Global Reference Atmospheric Model (Mars-GRAM), a science and engineering model for empirically parameterizing the temperature, pressure, density, and wind structure of the Martian atmosphere, is described with particular attention to the model's newest version, Mars-GRAM, Release No. 2 and to the improvements incorporated into the Release No. 2 model as compared with the Release No. 1 version. These improvements include (1) an addition of a new capability to simulate local-scale Martian dust storms and the growth and decay of these storms; (2) an addition of the Zurek and Haberle (1988) wave perturbation model, for simulating tidal perturbation effects; and (3) a new modular version of Mars-GRAM, for incorporation as a subroutine into other codes.
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Atmosphere of Mars
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The Mars atmosphere Global Climate Model (GCM) developed at the Laboratoire de Meteorologie Dynamique in collaboration with several teams in Europe (LATMOS, University of Oxford, The Open University, the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia), and with the support of ESA and CNES is currently used for many kind of applications. Our primary objective is to predict all details of the Mars Climate system, including the dust, water, CO 2 and photochemical cycles from the surface to the exobase, yet only on the basis of universal equations. In practice, to simulate a given year, we still have to assume a daily map of column dust opacity (See Montabone et al., this issue), but otherwise the model is almost free of other forcing (including to predict the dust vertical distribution). 2013 was an important milestone for the project since it concluded a long series of model development defined on the basis of the analysis of the Mars Climate Database version 4, released in 2005 using a previous version of our GCM (Forget et al. 2006). Key improvements As documented in the previous edition of the Mars Atmosphere Modeling and Observation Workshop, and in the per-review literature: Improved dynamical core for the polar atmosphere Improvements of Mars surface fields (albedo and thermal inertia map) Inclusion of subsurface water ice in the CO 2 ice cap energy balance, and improved tuning of the CO 2 cycle Improved parametrizations of convection and near surface turbulence, using a thermal plume model This thermal plume model is coupled to surface layer parameterizations taking into account stability and turbulent gustiness to calculate surface-atmosphere fluxes (Colaitis et al. 2013) Improvement of the representation of the airborne dust (Madeleine et al. 2011) based on a semi-interactive two moments dust transport scheme to predict the dust vertical distribution and the 3D variation of dust particle radii, coupled to improved radiative transfer calculations
Atmosphere of Mars
Albedo (alchemy)
Forcing (mathematics)
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The Mars Entry Atmospheric Data System (MEADS) is being developed as part of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), Entry, Descent, and Landing Instrumentation (MEDLI) project. The MEADS project involves installing an array of seven pressure transducers linked to ports on the MSL forebody to record the surface pressure distribution during atmospheric entry. These measured surface pressures are used to generate estimates of atmospheric quantities based on modeled surface pressure distributions. In particular, the quantities to be estimated from the MEADS pressure measurements include the total pressure, dynamic pressure, Mach number, angle of attack, and angle of sideslip. Secondary objectives are to estimate atmospheric winds by coupling the pressure measurements with the on-board Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) data. This paper provides details of the algorithm development, MEADS system performance based on calibration, and uncertainty analysis for the aerodynamic and atmospheric quantities of interest. The work presented here is part of the MEDLI performance pre-flight validation and will culminate with processing flight data after Mars entry in 2012.
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NASA’s Mars Climate Modeling Center at Ames Research Center is currently undergoing an exciting period of growth in personnel, modeling capabilities, and science productivity. We are transitioning from our legacy Arakawa C-grid finite-difference dynamical core to the NOAA/GFDL cubed-sphere finite-volume dynamical core for simulating the climate of Mars in a global framework. This highly parallelized core is scalable and flexible, which allows for significant improvements in the horizontal and vertical resolutions of our simulations. We have implemented the Ames water ice cloud microphysics package described in Haberle et al. (2018) into this new dynamical core. We will present high-resolution simulations of the dust and water cycles that show that sub-degree horizontal resolution improves the agreement between the vertical distribution of dust and water ice and observations. In particular, both water ice clouds and dust are transported to higher altitudes due to stronger topographic circulations at high resolution. Preliminary results suggest that high-resolution global modeling is needed to properly capture critical features of the dust and water cycles, and thus the current Mars climate.
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