Dust and the Mars Polar Vortices

Abstract:

Dust is a highly variable forcing mechanism altering martian atmospheric dynamics. The greatest variability in atmospheric dust opacity occurs during Mars’ northern hemisphere fall and winter, the canonical “dust storm season”. The northern polar vortex develops during this season and can be stretched, weakened, or strengthened by variations in atmospheric dust. Additionally, Mars’ north polar vortex manifests as an annulus of high potential vorticity around the geographic pole, which is distinctly different than Earth’s stratospheric polar vortices where potential vorticity peaks at the pole. We examine the role of dust in shaping and altering the martian polar vortices in a series of idealized MarsWRF general circulation model simulations. Increasing dust loading disrupts the northern polar vortex near the winter solstice leading to a “mid-winter warming”, and this is also seen in observations from the Mars Climate Sounder and Thermal Emission Spectrometer during large dust events. These appear loosely analogous with terrestrial “sudden stratospheric warming” events, where the strong westerly jet around the pole weakens and air inside the vortex quickly warms. The southern hemisphere winter polar vortex is distinctly different from that of the northern hemisphere, and we show that the fundamental “handedness” of the current martian climactic regime makes the southern hemisphere vortex less sensitive to dust forcing.