Zonally symmetric response to atmospheric tidal forcing in the dusty Martian atmosphere

The paper presents a steady state, zonally symmetric response of an atmospheric circulation to the combined effects of the very large zonal-mean diabatic heating and thermotidal forcing thought to exist in the dusty Martian atmosphere during one of its episodic global dust storms. The zonal-mean components of the tidal flux-convergences of momentum and heat are computed using an existing classical atmospheric tidal model constrained by the surface pressure observations at the two Viking Lander sites on Mars. A nearly inviscid two-dimensional model is used to compute the zonally symmetric response to the computed tidal flux-convergences and to the zonal-mean heating of the airborne dust. The results are compared with data from the Viking missions.