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Atmospheric Tides in Gale Crater, MarsAtmospheric tides are the primary source of daily air pressure variation at the surface of Mars. These tides are forced by solar heating of the atmosphere and modulated by the presence of atmospheric dust, topography, and surface albedo and thermal inertia. This results in a complex mix of sun-synchronous and nonsun- synchronous tides propagating both eastward and westward around the planet in periods that are integer fractions of a solar day. The Rover Environmental Monitoring Station on board the Mars Science Laboratory has observed air pressure at a regular cadence for over 1 Mars year and here we analyze and diagnose atmospheric tides in this pressure record. The diurnal tide amplitude varies from 26 to 63 Pa with an average phase of 0424 local true solar time, while the semidiurnal tide amplitude varies from 5 to 20 Pa with an average phase of 0929. We find that both the diurnal and semidiurnal tides in Gale Crater are highly correlated to atmospheric opacity variations at a value of 0.9 and to each other at a value of 0.77, with some key exceptions occurring during regional and local dust storms. We supplement our analysis with MarsWRF general circulation modeling to examine how a local dust storm impacts the diurnal tide in its vicinity. We find that both the diurnal tide amplitude enhancement and regional coverage of notable amplitude enhancement linearly scales with the size of the local dust storm. Our results provide the first long-term record of surface pressure tides near the martian equator.
Document ID
20170002483
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
Authors
Guzewich, Scott D,
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD United States)
Newman, C. E
(Ashima Research Pasadena, CA, United States)
de la Torre Juarez, M.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Wilson, R. J.
(Princeton Univ. Princeton, NJ, United States)
Lemmon, M.
(Texas A&M Univ. College Station, TX, United States)
Smith, M. D.
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Kahanpaa, H.
(Finnish Meteorological Inst. Helsinki, Finland)
Harri, A.-M.
(Finnish Meteorological Inst. Helsinki, Finland)
Date Acquired
March 23, 2017
Publication Date
December 30, 2015
Publication Information
Publication: Icarus
Publisher: Elsevier
Volume: 268
ISSN: 0019-1035
e-ISSN: 2643-2643
Subject Category
Lunar And Planetary Science And Exploration
Report/Patent Number
GSFC-E-DAA-TN40231
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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