The Mars Climate Database (version 4.3)

Abstract

The Mars Climate Database (MCD) is a database of meteorological fields derived from General Circulation Model (GCM) numerical simulations [2,4] of the Martian atmosphere and validated using available observational data. The MCD includes complementary post-processing schemes such as high spatial resolution interpolation of environmental data and means of reconstructing the variability thereof.The GCM is developed at LMD (Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique, Paris, France) in collaboration with several teams in Europe: LATMOS (Laboratoire Atmosphères, Milieux, Observations Spatiales, Paris, France), the Open University (UK), the Oxford University (UK) and the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (Spain) with support from the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES).The MCD is freely distributed and intended to be useful and used in the framework of engineering applications as well as in the context of scientific studies which require accurate knowledge of the state of the Martian atmosphere.The Mars Climate Database (MCD) has over the years been distributed to more than 150 teams around the world. With the many improvements implemented in the GCM over the last few years, a new series of reference simulations have been run and compiled in a new version (version 5) of the Mars Climate Database, released in the first half of 2012. Recent improvements in the LMD GCMFor more than twenty years, our teams have joined forces to develop the most realistic GCM to accurately model the martian atmosphere and climate. It has now matured to the point of being a "Mars System Model" capable of simulating the CO2 cycle, the dust cycle, the water cycle, the release and transport of radon, water isotopes cycle, the martian thermosphere and ionosphere, etc.Ongoing efforts have been made to improve our GCM and key recent improvements over the last few years include:-Updated schemes for the upper atmosphere:an improved computation of thermal cooling rates, a better treatment of radiative transfer in the 15-um bands, an enhanced solar heating rate model and an improved molecular diffusion scheme have been implemented [3].

Mars’ water vapor mapping by the SPICAM IR spectrometer: Five martian years of observations

“…6 should be corrected, since it was retrieved with big dust load, but using the ''MY 24 ave solar'' climate scenario, just as the rest of the SPICAM dataset. We reran our water vapor retrieval during the MY 28 global dust storm period using the ''dust storm ave solar'' MCD scenario (Millour et al, 2009), the model tuned to represent TES atmospheric properties during MY 25 dust storm observations (Smith, 2004). This dust storm scenario represents how the dramatic increase in the dust optical depth causes significant change in the temperature profile.…”

“…Information about the pressure and temperature profiles in martian atmosphere was taken from the European Mars Climate Database (MCD) version 4.3 from Laboratoire de Meteorologie Dynamique (Millour et al, 2009). Eight combinations of dust and solar scenarios are available.…”

The Atmospheric Radiation Interaction Simulator (AtRIS): Description and Validation

“…As a convenience, we have developed an interface for the terrestrial NRLMSISE‐00 model (Picone et al, ) and the Mars climate database (Millour et al, ), which both have been used extensively for validation.…”

An assessment of the impact of local processes on dust lifting in martian climate models

“…MGCM drag velocities: comparison of u à to threshold u t à With complete formulations for u à and u t à , we now investigate the performance of this dust lifting model under martian conditions. The Mars Climate Database (MCD) version 5.0 (Millour et al, 2012) contains output from the LMD MGCM, from simulations performed using a variety of different forcing (dust opacity, solar intensity) fields. Simulations were performed at 5:625  3:75 horizontal resolution and 30 min temporal resolution (for the model physics), and by using interpolation and statistics contained within the database, a full martian year of atmospheric and surface variability can be reconstructed from the MCD.…”