Martian Climate Database Documentation
Eight combinations of dust and solar scenarios have been used because these are
the two forcings that are highly variable from year to year.
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On one hand, the solar conditions describe variations in the Extreme UV
input which control the heating of the atmosphere above 120 km, which
typically varies on a 11 years cycle. Depending on the scenarios, solar maximum
average and/or minimum conditions are provided.
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On the other hand, the major factor which governs the variability in the Martian
atmosphere is the amount and distribution of suspended dust. Because of
this variability, and since even for a given year the details of the dust distribution
and optical properties can be uncertain, multi-annual model integrations
were carried out for the database assuming various dust scenarios, i.e. prescribing
various amount of airborne dust in the simulated atmosphere. 4 dust
scenarios are proposed:
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The Mars Year 24 (MY24) scenario was designed to mimic
Mars as observed by Mars Global Surveyor from 1999 to june 20011, a martian
year thought to be representative of one without a global dust storm.
The dust fields were derived from MGS TES observations using data
assimilation technique. The MY24 scenario is provided with 3 solar
EUV conditions: solar min, solar ave, solar max.
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The cold scenario corresponds to an extremely clear atmosphere ("low"
dust scenario; dust opacity = 0.1), topped with a solar minimum
thermosphere.
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The warm scenario corresponds to "dusty atmosphere for the season"
scenario (but not a global dust storm), topped with a solar maximum
thermosphere.
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The dust storm scenario represents Mars during a global dust storm
(dust opacity set to 4). Only available when such storms are likely
to happen, during northern fall and winter (Ls=180-360), but with 3
solar EUV conditions: solar min, solar ave, solar max.
Full documentation
Interested readers are encouraged to read the following documents (included in the distributed DVD-ROM version of the database):