2015/01/15 by A. J. Brown, M. J. Wolff, Brown, Adrian J. +3
Engineering · Medicine · Physics and Astronomy · #Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP) #FOS: Physical sciences #Planetary Science and Exploration #Space Exploration and Technology #Spaceflight effects on biology
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1501.03802
openalex publication_date 2015/01/15 · openalex created_date 2022/09/05 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We report on the interannual variability of the atmospheric ice/dust cycle in\nthe Martian polar regions for Mars Years 28-30. We used CRISM emission phase\nfunction measurements to derive atmospheric dust optical depths and data from\nthe MARCI instrument to derive atmospheric water ice optical depths. We have\nused autocorrelation and cross correlation functions in order to quantify the\ndegree to which dust and ice are correlated throughout both polar regions\nduring Mars Years 28-29. We find that in the south polar region, dust has the\ntendency to "self clear", demonstrated by negative autocorrelation around the\ncentral peak. This does not occur in the north polar region. In the south polar\nregion, dust and ice are temporally and spatially anti correlated. In the north\npolar region, this relationship is reversed, however temporal correlation of\nnorthern dust and ice clouds is weak - 6 times weaker than the anticorrelation\nin the south polar region. Our latitudinal autocorrelation functions allow us\nto put average spatial sizes of event cores and halos. Dust events in the south\nare largest, affecting almost the entire pole, whereas dust storms are smaller\nin the north. Ice clouds in north are similar in latitudinal extent to those in\nthe south (both have halos < 10\deg). Using cross-correlation functions of\nwater ice and dust, we find that dust events temporally lag ice events by 35-80\ndegrees of solar longitude in the north and south poles, which is likely due to\nseasonality of dust and ice events.\n