An Urgently Needed Repository for Planetary Atmospheric Model Output

Abstract

Output from planetary atmospheric models is crucial for a diverse range of NASA-supported activities: from assessing risks for spacecraft and human exploration, to studying the geology of ancient Mars or magnetospheres of giant planets, to engaging the public. It is right for NASA to fund work that includes the development and use of planetary atmospheric models. However, many NASA-supported activities could be enabled by use of existing model output, produced by previously-funded work, avoiding duplication of effort and saving NASA time and money.Understanding this, NASA increasingly encourages researchers to make model output publicly available. The problem is in facilitating awareness and access to this valuable resource.We recommend NASA invest in a community-recognized, discipline-specific repository for planetary atmospheric model output. This will increase the efficiency with which engineers, scientists, and EPO professionals utilize such output, and reduce costs to NASA. Introduction and motivation.NASA currently funds a wide range of planetary atmospheric modeling activities. In recent years, these have covered such disparate topics as very-high-resolution simulations of landing sites on Mars, moderate-resolution simulations of lake circulations on Titan, global climate models of Venus, Pluto and exoplanets, and global ionosphere-magnetosphere models of Jupiter.The results of such models are valuable across all stages of mission life cycles: from conception and development, to orbital insertion or landing, to data analysis and hypothesis testing, with the latter sometimes occurring decades after the mission itself has ended. The development of new models, or the significant update of previously developed ones, can lead to a revolution in understanding of significant aspects of a planetary body, often going far beyond its atmosphere.Typically, planetary models are developed, maintained, and run by small groups of scientists in order to answer specific research and/or engineering questions. While simple 1D or energybalance models may sometimes be sufficient, most questions require high-fidelity models, which must typically simulate an entire, integrated planetary system in order to predict one aspect of it. A single group may be funded to address several distinct scientific questions at any given time; yet, even in the case of a group with broad interests and collaborations, it is likely that only a fraction of model output generated is of value to their particular investigation(s). The result is a wealth of information that would certainly be applicable to other investigations, but which is often unseen by other potential users in the wider science community, and hence may go unused. 1.1. Produced for one purpose, useful for ten others.NASA has recently funded several models to predict the near-surface meteorology that will be observed by Mars 2020 sensors in Jezero crater along the rover's traverse. These predictions will soon be published; yet these models also output more variables than will be observe...

Giant Planet Observations in NASA’s Planetary Data System

“…Computational models and simulations are another critical tool used for the interpretation of remotely sensed giant planets data. Although model outputs are generally not archived in the PDS as they do not conform to PDS standards, several PDS nodes have implemented -or are now implementing -annex-style repositories to meet the data accessibility of the planetary modeling communities [62]. For example, the PPI Node maintains an annex (https://pds-ppi.igpp.ucla.edu/search/annex/, accessed on 30 October 2022) for models describing the Jovian current sheet and the global magnetic field of Saturn.…”