Thermal Forcing of the Nocturnal Near Surface Environment by Martian Water Ice Clouds

Cooper, Brittney; Juarez, Mora; Mischna, M. A.; Lemmon, M. T.; Martínez, G.; Kass, D. M.; Vasavada, A. R.; Campbell, Charissa; Moores, John E.

doi:10.1029/2020je006737

Cited by 7 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Similar investigations into radiatively active water-ice clouds have taken place at other mission locations, such as the Mars Science Laboratory rover (Grotzinger et al 2012). Notably, perturbations in the minimum daily ground and air temperatures were detected in the record of the REMS instrument (Gómez-Elvira et al 2012) in Gale Crater (Cooper et al 2021). These perturbations consisted of an increase in the minimum overnight ground and air temperatures, particularly during the Aphelion Cloud Belt (ACB) season.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 56%

“…Unlike the study from Cooper et al (2021), where ground and air temperatures are recorded by instruments on board Curiosity and both temperatures are used in their analysis, Phoenix did not carry a ground temperature sensor. Because of this, the surface energy balance is used as input to model the subsurface heat conduction at the Phoenix landing site to estimate ground temperature.…”

Section: Surface Energy Balancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…These perturbations consisted of an increase in the minimum overnight ground and air temperatures, particularly during the Aphelion Cloud Belt (ACB) season. An analysis of these perturbations by Cooper et al (2021) using a nighttime energy balance concluded that the most likely cause of the perturbation was the formation of water-ice clouds in the evening and throughout the night. Any clouds present at these times would prevent the escape of thermal radiation and reradiate this energy back toward the surface, keeping the surface warmer than it would be without clouds.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Record of Water-ice Clouds at the Phoenix Landing Site Derived from Modeling MET Temperature Data

2022

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Water-ice clouds were frequently detected throughout the 151-sol Phoenix mission by the Phoenix lidar, providing insight into the Martian water cycle. However, the lidar could not be used continuously, and as such, the cloud data were temporally constrained to when observations were acquired. Here we reconstruct a record of water-ice clouds at the Phoenix landing site by examining the radiative contribution made by the clouds to the surface energy balance. This is accomplished by modeling the data from the 2 m MET air temperature sensor on board the lander. Clouds radiating from 0 and 30 W m−2 of energy toward the surface are consistent with the MET record over the course of the mission. The additional longwave flux at the surface induced a warming of the surface and near-surface temperatures, usually between 1–3 K; however, the clouds showed a high degree of sol-to-sol variability. This radiative analysis indicates that clouds were present much earlier in the mission than previously known, and cloud emission reached a maximum near sol 90, consistent with analyses of the annular cloud at the Phoenix landing site. The modeled flux from clouds was compared to the water-ice optical depth retrieved from the Phoenix lidar, showing that optically thicker clouds emitted more radiation toward the surface.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 56%

Section: Surface Energy Balancementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Record of Water-ice Clouds at the Phoenix Landing Site Derived from Modeling MET Temperature Data

2022

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“…The peak cloud activities, determined by cloud opacity, were observed in the morning/afternoon and around the ACB period (Kloos et al 2018). They have also been reported to leave a thermal signature at night on Gale's surface (Cooper et al 2021), again demonstrating the importance of the radiative impact of water-ice clouds on the lower atmosphere as well as on the surface.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Geometric Properties of Water-ice Clouds as Observed from Jezero Crater in the First 600 sols with the NavCam Instrument On Board the Mars2020 Rover, Perseverance

Patel,

Tamppari,

de la Torre Juárez

et al. 2023

Planet. Sci. J.

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In the first 600 sols of the Mars2020 mission, LS 5.6o – 316.8o, 46 cloud movies and 145 cloud surveys were collected to observe clouds at Jezero Crater, the landing site of the Perseverance Rover. Cloud movies were processed using the Mean-Frame Subtraction (MFS) method for revealing cloud structures, which were subsequently analyzed using digital-image processing. Two-dimensional Fast Fourier Transforms (2D-FFT) were used to compute cloud structure sizes ranging from 2.90 to 15.25 km for clouds between 30 and 50 km altitude, based on coincident Mars Climate Sounder vertical profiles of atmospheric water-ice. Same-value thresholding was used to detect the cloud structures in MFS-processed and projected cloud movies. The resolution dependence that was needed to resolve these structures over various thresholds was examined to find multifractal scaling of Mars clouds for resolutions between 0.1 and 1.6 km. We characterize the multiscaling observed in the images and its implications for the design of cloud-tracking cameras from the surface as well as for cloud-resolving models.

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“…In addition to gravity waves, which cause temperature swings in the lower Martian atmosphere, the observations by the Curiosity rover showed that topographical effects can induce temperature fluctuations [12]. Moreover, the nighttime thermal forcing can be affected by the presence of clouds [13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strong nighttime boundary layer activity on Mars caused by thermal perturbations

Temel

Senel

Karatekin

2023

Preprint

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The Planetary boundary Layer (PBL) is the region which governs the interactions between the surface and atmosphere. Martian daytime PBL has been shown to have strong turbulent mixing similar to the Earth. Nighttime Martian PBL, yet to be explored further, has been assumed to form under very weak turbulent mixing conditions so far. Here we show that temperature fluctuations caused by large-scale atmospheric variations can induce strong local turbulent mixing and remarkably affect surface-atmosphere exchange processes. Temperature fluctuations as low as 0.5 K can increase the surface momentum flux up to an order of magnitude. Our results reveal the feedback between global/mesoscale atmospheric dynamics and the microscale boundary-layer meteorology, with implication for nighttime dust lifting on Mars due to increased near-surface wind stress.

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Thermal Forcing of the Nocturnal Near Surface Environment by Martian Water Ice Clouds

Cited by 7 publications

References 44 publications

A Record of Water-ice Clouds at the Phoenix Landing Site Derived from Modeling MET Temperature Data

A Record of Water-ice Clouds at the Phoenix Landing Site Derived from Modeling MET Temperature Data

Geometric Properties of Water-ice Clouds as Observed from Jezero Crater in the First 600 sols with the NavCam Instrument On Board the Mars2020 Rover, Perseverance

Strong nighttime boundary layer activity on Mars caused by thermal perturbations

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