The Impact of Planetary-Scale Thermal Forcing and Small-Scale Topography on the Diurnal Cycle of Martian Surface Pressure

Abstract:

The ongoing acquisition of high-precision surface pressure data in Gale crater by the MSL meteorology package motivates our investigation of how to interpret the observed diurnal variations in surface pressure in terms of seasonal changes in planetary-scale thermal forcing. We utilize a very high resolution Mars global circulation model (15 and 7.5 km resolution) that simulates diurnal variabilty at scales ranging from the crater scale to the planetary scale to address the issue of distinguishing the pressure signature of small-scale topographically-driven circulations from the global tide field. We define the latter as that resulting from a resynthesis of surface pressure using a compact set of tide modes derived from a space-time analysis of suitably normalized simulated surface pressure. This field includes the migrating tides, resonantly enhanced Kelvin waves and a small set of additional nonmigrating tides. The resulting residual pressure field is found to be highly localized and clearly influenced by topography. In particular, there are enhancements in the diurnal period tide amplitude of ~ 8-15 Pa in the majority of “small” scale craters. The enhancement in Gale crater is very similar to that found in a mesoscale model study by Tyler and Barnes [2013]. The phasing of the peak residual diurnal tide amplitude is invariably 6-8 am local solar time (LST) and is due to nighttime downlope/daytime upslope circulations. Slope wind effects are not simply localized to craters, but impact larger basin-like regions as well, including Hellas, Argyre, Isidis, and Solis Planum.

A notable feature of the MSL pressure record is the seasonally-evolving appearance of sharply peaked features at 0800 and 2000 LST that reflect the presence of four and six hour harmonics. We find that these modes correspond to migrating (sun-synchronous) tides and the observed seasonal cycle can be well matched by models with suitably evolving radiative forcing by aerosols. In short, these tide modes reflect global-scale forcing. We will discuss how consideration of these higher frequency tides aids modelers in assessing the impact of radiatively active water ice clouds.