Dust Devils : How many, how big, and how deadly ?

Abstract:

Dust devils are significant agents of dust-lifting on Mars, but their importance on Earth has been debated. Accurate quantification of the amount of dust-lifting by devils on Earth requires an understanding of the population of devils (i.e. the formation rate of devils of different diameters as a function of meteorological conditions, their longevity and their dust-lifting intensity). Correlation among these parameters (e.g. large devils last longer) means great care must be taken in evaluating the population integral - the contribution of 'average' devils may be dwarfed by the few largest ones, but large area-time surveys are needed to detect the rare giants. Significant progress has been made in quantifying the vortex population in the field using new pressure-logging instrumentation to generate robust statistics which appear also consistent with Large Eddy Simulations, and the vortex population can be reconciled with visual dust devil counts using Monte Carlo modeling, where core pressure drop is a useful intensity metric, and a threshold of about 0.3 hPa corresponds to visible dust lifting.

Further field measurements are exploring the parameter correlation, and vortex model-fitting is being use to estimate diameter and core pressure drop by combining pressure and wind speed/direction data at a single station, a technique that may be useful in the upcoming InSight mission at Mars, where dust devils may be a useful seismic source to probe the near-surface regolith structure. Array measurements with multiple stations are also yielding powerful results.

The core pressure drop can also be related to the weight-loading of structures for the quantification of dust devils as a hazard. In fact, dust devils are responsible for a number of deaths on the ground (in addition to aircraft and parachuting accidents) which will be briefly reviewed.