Climate of Mars - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The climate of Mars has been an issue of scientific curiosity for centuries, not least because Mars

Mars

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...

is the only terrestrial planet whose surface can be directly observed in detail from the Earth.

Although Mars is smaller at 11% of Earth's mass and 50% farther from the Sun than the Earth, its climate has important similarities, such as the polar ice caps, seasonal changes and the observable presence of weather patterns. It has attracted sustained study from planetologists and climatologists

Climatology

Climatology is the study of climate, scientifically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of time, and is a branch of the atmospheric sciences...

. Although Mars's climate has similarities to Earth's, including seasons and periodic ice ages, there are also important differences such as the absence of liquid water (though frozen water exists) and much lower thermal inertia. Mars' atmosphere has a scale height

Scale height

In various scientific contexts, a scale height is a distance over which a quantity decreases by a factor of e...

of approximately 11 km (36,000 ft), 60% greater than that on Earth. The climate is of considerable relevance to the question of whether life is or was present on the planet, and briefly received more interest in the news due to NASA measurements indicating increased sublimation of the south polar icecap leading to some popular press speculation that Mars was undergoing a parallel bout of global warming.

Mars has been studied by Earth-based instruments since as early as the 17th century but it is only since the exploration of Mars

Exploration of Mars

The exploration of Mars has been an important part of the space exploration programs of the Soviet Union, the United States, Europe, and Japan. Dozens of robotic spacecraft, including orbiters, landers, and rovers, have been launched toward Mars since the 1960s...

began in the mid-1960s that close-range observation has been possible. Flyby and orbital spacecraft have provided data from above, while direct measurements of atmospheric conditions have been provided by a number of landers and rovers. Advanced Earth orbital instruments today continue to provide some useful "big picture" observations of relatively large weather phenomena.

The first Martian flyby mission was Mariner 4

Mariner 4

Mariner 4 was the fourth in a series of spacecraft, launched on November 28, 1964, intended for planetary exploration in a flyby mode and performed the first successful flyby of the planet Mars, returning the first pictures of the Martian surface...

which arrived in 1965. That quick two day pass (July 14–15, 1965) was limited and crude in terms of its contribution to the state of knowledge of Martian climate. Later Mariner missions (Mariner 6, and Mariner 7) filled in some of the gaps in basic climate information. Data based climate studies started in earnest with the Viking program

Viking program

The Viking program consisted of a pair of American space probes sent to Mars, Viking 1 and Viking 2. Each spacecraft was composed of two main parts, an orbiter designed to photograph the surface of Mars from orbit, and a lander designed to study the planet from the surface...

in 1975 and continuing with such probes as the highly successful Mars Global Surveyor

Mars Global Surveyor

The Mars Global Surveyor was a US spacecraft developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and launched November 1996. It began the United States's return to Mars after a 10-year absence. It completed its primary mission in January 2001 and was in its third extended mission phase when, on 2...

.

This observational work has been complemented by a type of scientific computer simulation called the Mars General Circulation Model

Mars General Circulation Model

The Mars general circulation model is the result of a research project by NASA to understand the nature of the general circulation of the atmosphere of Mars, how that circulation is driven and how it affects the climate of Mars in the long term....

. Several different iterations of MGCM have led to an increased understanding of Mars as well as the limits of such models. Models are limited in their ability to represent atmospheric physics that occurs at a smaller scale than their resolution. They also may be based on inaccurate or unrealistic assumptions about how Mars works and certainly suffer from the quality and limited density in time and space of climate data from Mars.

Historical climate observations

Giancomo Miraldi determined in 1704 that the southern cap is not centered on the rotational pole of Mars. During the opposition of 1719, Miraldi observed both polar caps and temporal variability in their extent.

William Herschel

William Herschel

Sir Frederick William Herschel, KH, FRS, German: Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel was a German-born British astronomer, technical expert, and composer. Born in Hanover, Wilhelm first followed his father into the Military Band of Hanover, but emigrated to Britain at age 19...

was the first to deduce the low density of the Martian atmosphere in his 1784 paper entitled On the remarkable appearances at the polar regions on the planet Mars, the inclination of its axis, the position of its poles, and its spheroidal figure; with a few hints relating to its real diameter and atmosphere. When two faint stars passed close to Mars with no effect on their brightness, Herschel correctly concluded that this meant that there was little atmosphere around Mars to interfere with their light.

Honore Flaugergues

Honoré Flaugergues

Honoré Flaugergues was a French astronomer.....

1809 discovery of "yellow clouds" on the surface of Mars is the first known observation of Martian dust storms. Flaugergues also observed in 1813 significant polar ice waning during Martian springtime. His speculation that this meant that Mars was warmer than earth was inaccurate.

Martian paleoclimatology

Prior to any serious examination of Martian Paleoclimatology one has to agree on terms, especially broad terms of planetary ages. There are two extant age systems for Mars. The first is based on crater density and has three ages, Noachian, Hesperian, and Amazonian. An alternate mineralogical timeline has been proposed, also with three ages, Phyllocian, Theikian, and Siderikian.

Recent observations and modeling is producing information not only about the present climate and atmospheric conditions on Mars but also about its past. The Noachian-era Martian atmosphere had long been theorized to be carbon dioxide rich. Recent spectral observations of deposits of clay minerals on Mars and modeling of clay mineral formation conditions have found that there is little to no carbonate present in clay of that era. Clay formation in a carbon dioxide rich environment is always accompanied by carbonate formation, though once formed they are susceptible to destruction by volcanic acidity.

The discovery of water-formed minerals on Mars including Hematite

Hematite

Hematite, also spelled as haematite, is the mineral form of iron oxide , one of several iron oxides. Hematite crystallizes in the rhombohedral system, and it has the same crystal structure as ilmenite and corundum...

and jarosite

Jarosite

Jarosite is a basic hydrous sulfate of potassium and iron with a chemical formula of KFe3+362. This sulfate mineral is formed in ore deposits by the oxidation of iron sulfides...

by the Opportunity rover, and goethite

Goethite

Goethite , named after the German polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, is an iron bearing oxide mineral found in soil and other low-temperature environments. Goethite has been well known since prehistoric times for its use as a pigment. Evidence has been found of its use in paint pigment samples...

by the Spirit rover has led to the conclusion that climatic conditions in the distant past allowed for free flowing water on Mars. The morphology of some crater impacts on Mars indicate that the ground was wet at the time of impact. Geomorphic observations of both landscape erosion rates and martian valley networks

Valley networks (Mars)

Valley networks are branching networks of valleys on Mars that superficially resemble terrestrial river drainage basins. They are found mainly incised into the terrain of the martian southern highlands, and are typically - though not always - of Noachian age...

also strongly imply warmer, wetter conditions on Noachian

Noachian

The Noachian is a geologic system and early time period on the planet Mars characterized by high rates of meteorite and asteroid impacts and the presence of abundant surface water...

-era Mars (approximately greater than 4 billion years ago). However, chemical analysis of martian meteorite samples suggests that the ambient near-surface temperature of Mars has most likely been below 0 C° for the last four billion years.

Some scientists maintain that the great mass of the Tharsis

Tharsis

The Tharsis region on Mars is a vast volcanic plateau centered near the equator in Mars’ western hemisphere. The region is home to the largest volcanoes in the Solar System, including the three enormous shield volcanoes Arsia Mons, Pavonis Mons, and Ascraeus Mons, which are collectively known as...

volcanoes has had a major influence on the climate of Mars. Erupting volcanoes give off great amounts of gas. The gases are usually water vapor and carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...

. Estimates put the amount of gas released to the atmosphere from Martian volcanoes as enough to make the atmosphere thicker than the Earth's. In addition, the water vapor from the volcanoes could have made enough water to place all of Mars under 120 meters of water. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas

Greenhouse gas

A greenhouse gas is a gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone...

that raises the temperature of a planet by trapping heat in the form of infrared radiation. So Tharsis volcanoes, by giving off carbon dioxide, could have made Mars more Earth-like in the past. Mars may have once had a much thicker and warmer atmosphere, and oceans and/or lakes may have been present. It has however proven extremely difficult to construct convincing global climate models for Mars which produce conditions above freezing at any point in its history, though this may simply reflect problems in accurately calibrating such models.

Weather

Mars temperature and circulation vary from year to year (as expected for any planet with an atmosphere). Mars lacks an ocean, a source of much inter-annual variation on earth. Mars Orbital Camera data beginning in March 1999 and covering 2.5 Martian years shows that Martian weather tends to be more repeatable and hence more predictable than that of Earth. If an event occurs at a particular time of year in one year, the available data (sparse as it is) indicates that it is fairly likely to repeat the next year at nearly the same location give or take a week.

On September 29, 2008, the Phoenix lander

Phoenix (spacecraft)

Phoenix was a robotic spacecraft on a space exploration mission on Mars under the Mars Scout Program. The Phoenix lander descended on Mars on May 25, 2008...

took pictures of snow falling from clouds 4.5 km above its landing site

Green Valley (Mars)

Green Valley is a region on Mars within Vastitas Borealis that was chosen as the landing site of NASA's Phoenix lander. It is located at 68.35 degrees north, 233 degrees east. The valley is about 50 kilometres wide but only about 250 metres deep; either it was filled in or was never any deeper than...

near Heimdall crater

Heimdal (Martian crater)

Heimdal is a relatively recent impact crater on the planet Mars. It lies in Vastitas Borealis, the northern plain. It is named after Heimdal, a town in Norway....

. The precipitation vaporized before reaching the ground, a phenomenon called virga

Virga

In meteorology, virga is an observable streak or shaft of precipitation that falls from a cloud but evaporates before reaching the ground. At high altitudes the precipitation falls mainly as ice crystals before melting and finally evaporating; this is usually due to compressional heating, because...

Clouds

Mars' dust storms can kick up fine particles in the atmosphere around which clouds can form. These clouds can form very high up, up to 62 miles above the planet. The clouds are very faint and can only be seen reflecting sunlight against the darkness of the night sky. In that respect, they look similar to the mesospheric clouds, also known as noctilucent clouds on Earth, which occur about 50 miles (80.5 km) above our planet.

Temperature

Differing values have been reported for the average temperature on Mars, with a common value being −55 C. Surface temperatures have been estimated from the Viking Orbiter Infrared Thermal Mapper data; this gives extremes from a warmest of 27 °C (80.6 °F) to −143 C at the winter polar caps. Actual temperature measurements from the Viking landers range from −17.2 C to −107 C.

It has been reported that "On the basis of the nighttime air temperature data, every northern spring and early northern summer yet observed were identical to within the level of experimental error (to within ±1 K)" but that the "daytime data, however, suggest a somewhat different story, with temperatures varying from year-to-year by up to 6 K in this season. This day-night discrepancy is unexpected and not understood". In southern spring and summer variance is dominated by dust storms, which increase the value of the night low temperature and decrease the daytime peak temperature, resulting in a small (20C) decrease in average surface temperature, and a moderate (30C) increase in upper atmosphere temperature.

Low atmospheric pressure

The Martian atmosphere

Atmosphere of Mars

The atmosphere of Mars is relatively thin and is composed mostly of carbon dioxide . There has been interest in studying its composition since the detection of trace amounts of methane, which may indicate the presence of life on Mars, but may also be produced by a geochemical process, volcanic or...

is composed mainly of carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...

and has a mean surface pressure

Surface pressure

Surface pressure is the atmospheric pressure at a location on Earth's surface. It is directly proportional to the mass of air over that location....

of about 600 pascal

Pascal (unit)

The pascal is the SI derived unit of pressure, internal pressure, stress, Young's modulus and tensile strength, named after the French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and philosopher Blaise Pascal. It is a measure of force per unit area, defined as one newton per square metre...

s, much lower than the Earth's 101,000 Pa. One effect of this is that Mars' atmosphere can react much more quickly to a given energy input than can our atmosphere. As a consequence, Mars is subject to strong thermal tides produced by solar heating rather than a gravitational influence. These tides can be significant, being up to 10% of the total atmospheric pressure (typically about 50 Pa). Earth's atmosphere experiences similar diurnal and semidiurnal tides but their effect is less noticeable because of Earth's much greater atmospheric mass.

Although the temperature on Mars can reach above freezing (0 °C), liquid water is unstable over much of the planet, as the atmospheric pressure is below water's triple point

Triple point

In thermodynamics, the triple point of a substance is the temperature and pressure at which the three phases of that substance coexist in thermodynamic equilibrium...

and water ice simply sublimes into water vapor. Exceptions to this are the low-lying areas of the planet, most notably in the Hellas Planitia

Hellas Planitia

Hellas Planitia, also known as the Hellas Impact Basin, is a huge, roughly circular impact basin located in the southern hemisphere of the planet Mars. It is the second or third largest impact crater and the largest visible impact crater known in the Solar System...

impact basin, the largest such crater on Mars. It is so deep that the atmospheric pressure at the bottom reaches 1155 Pa, which is above the triple point, so if the temperature exceeded 0 °C liquid water could exist there.

Wind

The surface of Mars has a very low thermal inertia, which means it heats quickly when the sun shines on it. Typical daily temperature swings, away from the polar regions, are around 100 K. On Earth, winds often develop in areas where thermal inertia changes suddenly, such as from sea to land. There are no seas on Mars, but there are areas where the thermal inertia of the soil changes, leading to morning and evening winds akin to the sea breezes on Earth. The Antares project "Mars Small-Scale Weather" (MSW) has recently identified some minor weaknesses in current global climate models (GCMs) due to the GCMs' more primitive soil modeling "heat admission to the ground and back is quite important in Mars, so soil schemes have to be quite accurate. " Those weaknesses are being corrected and should lead to more accurate assessments going forward but make continued reliance on older predictions of modeled Martian climate somewhat problematic.

At low latitudes the Hadley circulation dominates, and is essentially the same as the process which on Earth generates the trade winds. At higher latitudes a series of high and low pressure areas, called baroclinic pressure waves, dominate the weather. Mars is dryer and colder than Earth, and in consequence dust raised by these winds tends to remain in the atmosphere longer than on Earth as there is no precipitation to wash it out (excepting CO₂ snowfall). One such cyclonic

Cyclone

In meteorology, a cyclone is an area of closed, circular fluid motion rotating in the same direction as the Earth. This is usually characterized by inward spiraling winds that rotate anticlockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere of the Earth. Most large-scale...

storm was recently captured by the Hubble space telescope (pictured below).

One of the major differences between Mars' and Earth's Hadley circulations is their speed which is measured on an overturning timescale. The overturning timescale on Mars is about 100 Martian days

Timekeeping on Mars

Various schemes have been used or proposed to keep track of time and date on the planet Mars independently of Earth time and calendars.Mars has an axial tilt and a rotation period similar to those of Earth. Thus it experiences seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter much like Earth, and its...

while on Earth, it is over a year.

Effect of dust storms

When the Mariner 9

Mariner 9

Mariner 9 was a NASA space orbiter that helped in the exploration of Mars and was part of the Mariner program. Mariner 9 was launched toward Mars on May 30, 1971 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and reached the planet on November 13 of the same year, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit...

probe arrived at Mars

Mars

in 1971, the world expected to see crisp new pictures of surface detail. Instead they saw a near planet-wide dust storm with only the giant volcano Olympus Mons

Olympus Mons

Olympus Mons is a large volcanic mountain on the planet Mars. At a height of almost , it is one of the tallest mountains in the Solar System, three times as tall as Mount Everest and more than twice the height of Mauna Kea the tallest mountain on Earth. Olympus Mons is the youngest of the large...

showing above the haze. The storm lasted for a month, an occurrence scientists have since learned is quite common on Mars.
As observed by the Viking spacecraft from the surface, "during a global dust storm the diurnal temperature range narrowed sharply, from fifty degrees to only about ten degrees, and the wind speeds picked up considerably---indeed, within only an hour of the storm's arrival they had increased to 17 meters per second, with gusts up to 26 meters per second. Nevertheless, no actual transport of material was observed at either site, only a gradual brightening and loss of contrast of the surface material as dust settled onto it."
On June 26, 2001, the Hubble Space Telescope spotted a dust storm brewing in Hellas Basin on Mars (pictured right). A day later the storm "exploded" and became a global event. Orbital measurements showed that this dust storm reduced the average temperature of the surface and raised the temperature of the atmosphere of Mars by 30 °C. The low density of the Martian atmosphere means that winds of 40 to 50 mph (18 to 22 m/s) are needed to lift dust from the surface, but since Mars is so dry, the dust can stay in the atmosphere far longer than on Earth, where it is soon washed out by rain. The season following that dust storm had daytime temperatures 4 °C below average. This was attributed to the global covering of light-colored dust that settled out of the dust storm, temporarily increasing Mars' albedo.

In mid-2007 a planet-wide dust storm posed a serious threat to the solar-powered Spirit and Opportunity Mars Exploration Rover

Mars Exploration Rover

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Mission is an ongoing robotic space mission involving two rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, exploring the planet Mars...

s by reducing the amount of energy provided by the solar panels and necessitating the shut-down of most science experiments while waiting for the storms to clear. Following the dust storms, the rovers had significantly reduced power due to settling of dust on the arrays.

Dust storms are most common during perihelion, when the planet receives 40 percent more sunlight than during aphelion. During aphelion water ice clouds form in the atmosphere, interacting with the dust particles and affecting the temperature of the planet.

It has been suggested that dust storms on Mars could play a role in storm formation similar to that of water clouds on Earth. Observation since the 1950s has shown that the chances of a planet-wide dust storm in a particular Martian year are approximately one in three.

Saltation

The process of geological saltation

Saltation (geology)

In geology, saltation is a specific type of particle transport by fluids such as wind or water. It occurs when loose material is removed from a bed and carried by the fluid, before being transported back to the surface...

is quite important on Mars as a mechanism for adding particulates to the atmosphere. Saltating sand particles have been observed on the MER Spirit rover. Theory and real world observations have not agreed with each other, classical theory missing up to half of real-world saltating particles. A new model more closely in accord with real world observations demonstrates that saltating particles create an electrical field that increases the saltation effect. Mars grains saltate in 100 times higher and longer trajectories and reach 5-10 times higher velocities than Earth grains do.

Repeating northern annular cloud

A large doughnut shaped cloud appears in North polar region of Mars around the same time every Martian year and of about the same size. It forms in the morning, dissipates by the Martian afternoon. The outer diameter of the cloud is roughly 1000 miles, and the inner hole or eye is 200 miles across. The cloud is thought to be composed of water-ice, so it is white in color, unlike the more common dust storms.

It looks like a cyclonic storm, similar to hurricane, but it does not rotate. The cloud appears during the northern summer and at high latitude. Speculation is that this is due to unique climate conditions near the northern pole. Cyclone-like storms were first detected during the Viking orbital mapping program, but the northern annular cloud is nearly three times larger. The cloud has also been detected by various probes and telescopes including the Hubble

Hubble Space Telescope

The Hubble Space Telescope is a space telescope that was carried into orbit by a Space Shuttle in 1990 and remains in operation. A 2.4 meter aperture telescope in low Earth orbit, Hubble's four main instruments observe in the near ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared...

and Mars Global Surveyor

Mars Global Surveyor

.

Other repeating events are dust storms and dust devils.

Methane presence

Methane

Methane is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is the simplest alkane, the principal component of natural gas, and probably the most abundant organic compound on earth. The relative abundance of methane makes it an attractive fuel...

has been detected in the atmosphere of Mars by ESA's Mars Express

Mars Express

Mars Express is a space exploration mission being conducted by the European Space Agency . The Mars Express mission is exploring the planet Mars, and is the first planetary mission attempted by the agency. "Express" originally referred to the speed and efficiency with which the spacecraft was...

probe at a level of 10 nL/L.
Since breakup of that much methane by ultraviolet light would only take 350 years under current Martian conditions, some sort of active source must be replenishing the gas. Mars' current climate conditions may be destabilizing underground clathrate hydrate

Clathrate hydrate

Clathrate hydrates are crystalline water-based solids physically resembling ice, in which small non-polar molecules or polar molecules with large hydrophobic moieties are trapped inside "cages" of hydrogen bonded water molecules...

s but there is at present no consensus on the source of Martian methane.

Carbon dioxide carving

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is a NASA multipurpose spacecraft designed to conduct reconnaissance and Exploration of Mars from orbit...

images suggest an unusual erosion effect occurs based on Mars' unique climate. Spring warming in certain areas leads to CO₂ ice subliming and flowing upwards, creating highly unusual erosion patterns called "spider gullies". Translucent CO₂ ice forms over winter and as the spring sunlight warms the surface, it vaporizes the CO₂ to gas which flows uphill under the translucent CO₂ ice. Weak points in that ice lead to CO₂ geysers.

Mountains

Martian storms are significantly affected by Mars' large mountain ranges. Individual mountains like record holding Olympus Mons

Olympus Mons

(27 km) can affect local weather but larger weather effects are due to the larger collection of volcanoes in the Tharsis

Tharsis

region.

One unique repeated weather phenomena involving Mountains is a spiral dust cloud that forms over Arsia Mons

Arsia Mons

Arsia Mons is the southernmost of three volcanos on the Tharsis bulge near the equator of the planet Mars. To its north is Pavonis Mons, and north of that is Ascraeus Mons. The tallest mountain in the solar system, Olympus Mons, is to its northwest...

. The spiral dust cloud over Arsia Mons can tower 15 to 30 kilometers (9 to 19 miles) above the volcano. Clouds are present around Arsia Mons throughout the Martian year, peaking in late summer.

Clouds surrounding mountains display a seasonal variability. Clouds at Olympus Mons and Ascreaus Mons appear in northern hemisphere spring and summer, reaching a total maximum area of approximately 900,000 km² and 1,000,000 km² respectively in late spring. Clouds around Alba Patera

Alba Patera

Alba Mons is an immense, low-lying volcano located in the northern Tharsis region of the planet Mars. It is the largest volcano on Mars in terms of area, with volcanic flow fields that extend for at least 1350 km from its summit...

and Pavonis Mons

Pavonis Mons

Pavonis Mons is a large shield volcano located in the Tharsis region of the planet Mars. It is the middle member of a chain of three volcanic mountains that straddle the Martian equator between longitudes 235°E and 259°E. The volcano was discovered by the Mariner 9 spacecraft in 1971 and was...

show an additional, smaller peak in late summer. Very few clouds were observed in winter. Predictions from the Mars General Circulation Model are consistent with these observations.

Polar caps

Mars possesses ice caps at both poles, which mainly consist of water ice; however, there is frozen carbon dioxide (dry ice

Dry ice

Dry ice, sometimes referred to as "Cardice" or as "card ice" , is the solid form of carbon dioxide. It is used primarily as a cooling agent. Its advantages include lower temperature than that of water ice and not leaving any residue...

) present on their surfaces. Dry ice accumulates in the northern polar region (Planum Boreum

Planum Boreum

Planum Boreum is the northern polar plain on Mars. It extends northward from roughly 80°N and is centered at . Surrounding the high polar plain is a flat and featureless lowland plain called Vastitas Borealis which extends for approximately 1500 kilometres southwards, dominating the northern...

) in winter only, subliming completely in summer, while the south polar region additionally has a permanent dry ice cover up to eight metres (25 feet) thick. This difference is due to the higher elevation of the south pole.

So much of the atmosphere can condense at the winter pole that the atmospheric pressure can vary by up to a third of its mean value. This condensation and evaporation will cause the proportion of the noncondensable gases in the atmosphere to change inversely. The eccentricity of Mars's orbit affects this cycle, as well as other factors. In the spring and autumn wind due to the carbon dioxide sublimation process is so strong that it can be a cause of the global dust storms mentioned above.

The northern polar cap has a diameter of approximately 1,000 km during the northern Mars summer,
and contains about 1.6 million cubic kilometres of ice, which if spread evenly on the cap would be 2 km thick. (This compares to a volume of 2.85 million cubic kilometres for the Greenland ice sheet

Greenland ice sheet

The Greenland ice sheet is a vast body of ice covering , roughly 80% of the surface of Greenland. It is the second largest ice body in the world, after the Antarctic Ice Sheet. The ice sheet is almost long in a north-south direction, and its greatest width is at a latitude of 77°N, near its...

.) The southern polar cap has a diameter of 350 km and a maximum thickness of 3 km. Both polar caps show spiral troughs, which were formerly believed to form as a result of differential solar heating, coupled with the sublimation of ice and condensation of water vapor. Recent analysis of ice penetrating radar data from SHARAD

SHARAD

SHARAD is a subsurface sounding radar embarked on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter probe. It complements the MARSIS instrument on Mars Express, providing lower penetration capabilities but much finer resolution .SHARAD is developed under the responsibility of the Italian Space Agency SHARAD (Mars...

has demonstrated that the spiral troughs are formed from a unique situation in which high density katabatic wind

Katabatic wind

A katabatic wind, from the Greek word katabatikos meaning "going downhill", is the technical name for a drainage wind, a wind that carries high density air from a higher elevation down a slope under the force of gravity. Such winds are sometimes also called fall winds...

s descend from the polar high to transport ice and create large wavelength bedforms. The spiral shape comes from Coriolis effect

Coriolis effect

In physics, the Coriolis effect is a deflection of moving objects when they are viewed in a rotating reference frame. In a reference frame with clockwise rotation, the deflection is to the left of the motion of the object; in one with counter-clockwise rotation, the deflection is to the right...

forcing of the winds, much like winds on earth spiral to form a hurricane. The troughs did not form with either ice cap, instead they began to form between 2.4 million and 500,000 years ago, after three fourths of the ice cap was in place. This suggests that a climatic shift allowed for their onset. Both polar caps shrink and regrow following the temperature fluctuation of the Martian seasons; there are also longer-term trends that are not fully understood.

During the southern hemisphere spring, solar heating of south polar dry ice deposits leads in places to accumulation of pressurized CO₂ gas below the surface of the semitransparent ice, warmed by absorption of radiation by the darker substrate. After attaining the pressure needed to burst through, the gas erupts in geyser-like plumes. While the eruptions have not been directly observed, they leave evidence in the form of "dark dune spots" and lighter fans atop the ice, representing sand and dust carried aloft by the eruptions, and a spider-like pattern of grooves created below the ice by the outrushing gas. (see Geysers on Mars

Geysers on Mars

Martian geysers are putative sites of small-scale jet-like eruptions that are believed to occur in the south polar region of Mars during the spring thaw. "Dark dune spots" and "spiders" are the two most visible types of features ascribed to these eruptions. They are unlike any terrestrial...

.) Eruptions of nitrogen

Nitrogen

Nitrogen is a chemical element that has the symbol N, atomic number of 7 and atomic mass 14.00674 u. Elemental nitrogen is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, and mostly inert diatomic gas at standard conditions, constituting 78.08% by volume of Earth's atmosphere...

gas observed by Voyager 2

Voyager 2

The Voyager 2 spacecraft is a 722-kilogram space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977 to study the outer Solar System and eventually interstellar space...

on Triton

Triton (moon)

Triton is the largest moon of the planet Neptune, discovered on October 10, 1846, by English astronomer William Lassell. It is the only large moon in the Solar System with a retrograde orbit, which is an orbit in the opposite direction to its planet's rotation. At 2,700 km in diameter, it is...

are thought to occur by a similar mechanism.

Solar wind

Mars lost most of its magnetic field about four billion years ago. As a result, solar wind

Solar wind

The solar wind is a stream of charged particles ejected from the upper atmosphere of the Sun. It mostly consists of electrons and protons with energies usually between 1.5 and 10 keV. The stream of particles varies in temperature and speed over time...

and cosmic radiation interacts directly with the Martian ionosphere. This keeps the atmosphere thinner than it would otherwise be by solar wind action constantly stripping away atoms from the outer atmospheric layer. Most of the historical atmospheric loss on Mars can be traced back to this solar wind effect. Current theory posits a weakening solar wind and thus today's atmosphere stripping effects are much less than those in the past when the solar wind was stronger.

Seasons

Mars

has an axial tilt

Axial tilt

In astronomy, axial tilt is the angle between an object's rotational axis, and a line perpendicular to its orbital plane...

of 25.2°. This means that there are seasons on Mars, just as on Earth. The eccentricity

Orbital eccentricity

The orbital eccentricity of an astronomical body is the amount by which its orbit deviates from a perfect circle, where 0 is perfectly circular, and 1.0 is a parabola, and no longer a closed orbit...

of Mars' orbit is 0.1, much greater than the Earth's present orbital eccentricity of about 0.02. The large eccentricity causes the insolation

Insolation

Insolation is a measure of solar radiation energy received on a given surface area in a given time. It is commonly expressed as average irradiance in watts per square meter or kilowatt-hours per square meter per day...

on Mars to vary as the planet passes round the Sun (the Martian year lasts 687 days, roughly 2 Earth years). As on Earth, Mars' obliquity dominates the seasons but, because of the large eccentricity, winters in the southern hemisphere are long and cold while those in the North are short and warm.

The seasons present unequal lengths are as follows:

Season	Sols (on Mars)	Days (on Earth)
Northern Spring, Southern Autumn:	193.30	92.764
Northern Summer, Southern Winter:	178.64	93.647
Northern Autumn, Southern Spring:	142.70	89.836
Northern Winter, Southern Summer:	153.95	88.997

Precession in the alignment of the obliquity and eccentricity lead to global warming and cooling ('great' summers and winters) with a period of 170,000 years.

Like Earth, the obliquity of Mars undergoes periodic changes which can lead to long-lasting changes in climate. Once again, the effect is more pronounced on Mars because it lacks the stabilizing influence of a large moon. As a result the obliquity can alter by as much as 45°. Jacques Laskar, of France's National Centre for Scientific Research, argues that the effects of these periodic climate changes can be seen in the layered nature of the ice cap on the planets north pole. Current research suggests that Mars is in a warm interglacial period which has lasted more than 100,000 years.

Because the Mars Global Surveyor

Mars Global Surveyor

was able to observe Mars for 4 Mars years, it was found that Martian weather was similar from year to year. Any differences were directly related to changes in the solar energy that reached Mars. Scientists were even able to accurately predict dust storms that would occur during the landing of Beagle 2

Beagle 2

Beagle 2 was an unsuccessful British landing spacecraft that formed part of the European Space Agency's 2003 Mars Express mission. All contact with it was lost upon its separation from the Mars Express six days before its scheduled entry into the atmosphere...

. Regional dust storms were discovered to be closely related to where dust was available.

Evidence for recent climatic change

There have been changes around the south pole (Planum Australe

Planum Australe

Planum Australe is the southern polar plain on Mars. It extends southward of roughly 75°S and is centered at . The geology of this region was to be explored by the failed NASA mission Mars Polar Lander, which lost contact on entry into the Martian atmosphere.-Ice cap:Planum Australe is partially...

) over the past few Martian years. In 1999 the Mars Global Surveyor

Mars Global Surveyor

photographed pits in the layer of frozen carbon dioxide at the Martian south pole. Because of their striking shape and orientation these pits have become known as swiss cheese features

Swiss cheese features

Swiss cheese features are curious pits in the south polar ice cap of Mars named from their similarity to the holes in Swiss cheese. They were first seen in 2000 using Mars Orbiter Camera imagery. They are typically a few hundred meters across and 8 metres deep, with a flat base and steep sides...

. In 2001 the craft photographed the same pits again and found that they had grown larger, retreating about 3 meters in one Martian year.

These features are caused by the dry ice layer sublimating exposing the inert water ice layer.

More recent observations indicate that Mars' south pole is continuing to sublime. "It's evaporating right now at a prodigious rate," says Michael Malin

Michael C. Malin

Michael C. Malin is an American astronomer, space-scientist, and CEO of Malin Space Science Systems. His cameras have been important scientific instruments in the Exploration of Mars....

, principal investigator for the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC).
The pits in the ice continue to grow by about 3 meters per Martian year. Malin states that conditions on Mars are not currently conductive to the formation of new ice. A NASA

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

press release has suggested that this indicates a "climate change in progress" on Mars

Mars

. In a summary of observations with the Mars Orbiter Camera, researchers speculated that some dry ice may have been deposited between the Mariner 9

Mariner 9

and the Mars Global Surveyor

Mars Global Surveyor

mission. Based on the current rate of loss, the deposits of today may be gone in a hundred years.

Elsewhere on the planet, low latitude areas have more water ice than they should have given current climatic conditions. Mars Odyssey "is giving us indications of recent global climate change in Mars," said Jeffrey Plaut, project scientist for the mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in non-peer reviewed published work in 2003.

Causes of the polar changes

Colaprete et al. conducted simulations with the Mars General Circulation Model which show that the local climate around the Martian south pole may currently be in an unstable period. The simulated instability is rooted in the geography of the region, leading the authors to speculate that the subliming of the polar ice is a local phenomenon rather than a global one. The researchers showed that even with a constant solar luminosity the poles were capable of jumping between states of depositing or losing ice. The trigger for a change of states could be either increased dust loading in the atmosphere or an albedo change due to deposition of water ice on the polar cap. This theory is somewhat problematic due to the lack of ice depositation after the 2001 global dust storm Another issue is that the accuracy of the Mars General Circulation Model decreases as the scale of the phenomenon becomes more local.

It has been argued that "observed regional changes in south polar ice cover are almost certainly due to a regional climate transition, not a global phenomenon, and are demonstrably unrelated to external forcing." Writing in a Nature news story, Chief News and Features Editor Oliver Morton said "The warming of other solar bodies has been seized upon by climate sceptics.On Mars, the warming seems to be down to dust blowing around and uncovering big patches of black basaltic rock that heat up in the day"

Assertion that solar irradiance is causing global warming on Mars

Despite the absence of a time series for Martian global temperatures, K. I. Abdusamatov

Khabibullo Abdusamatov

Habibullo Ismailovich Abdussamatov is a Russian astrophysicist of Uzbek descent. He is the supervisor of the Astrometria project of the Russian section of the International Space Station and the head of Space research laboratory at the Saint Petersburg-based Pulkovo Observatory of the Russian...

has proposed that "parallel global warmings" observed simultaneously on Mars and on Earth can only be a consequence of the same factor: a long-time change in solar irradiance

Solar variation

Solar variation is the change in the amount of radiation emitted by the Sun and in its spectral distribution over years to millennia. These variations have periodic components, the main one being the approximately 11-year solar cycle . The changes also have aperiodic fluctuations...

."
While some climate change skeptics take this as proof that humans are not causing climate change, Abdusamatov's hypothesis has not been accepted by the scientific community. His assertions have not been published in the peer-reviewed literature, and have been dismissed by other scientists, who have stated that "the idea just isn't supported by the theory or by the observations" and that it "doesn't make physical sense." Other scientists have proposed that the observed variations are caused by irregularities in the orbit of Mars or a possible combination of solar and orbital effects.

Climate Zones of Mars

Terrestrial Climate zones first have been defined by Wladimir Köppen

Wladimir Köppen

Wladimir Peter Köppen was a Russian geographer, meteorologist, climatologist and botanist. After studies in St. Petersburg, he spent the bulk of his life and professional career in Germany and Austria...

based on the distribution of vegetation groups. Climate classification is furthermore based on temperature, rainfall, and subdivided based upon differences in the seasonal distribution of temperature and precipitation; and a separate group exists for extrazonal climates like in high altitudes. Mars has no vegetation, nor rainfall, so any climate classification could be only based upon temperature; a further refinement of the system may be based on dust distribution, water vapor content, occurrence of snow. Solar Climate Zones can also be easily defined for Mars.

Current missions

The 2001 Mars Odyssey

2001 Mars Odyssey

2001 Mars Odyssey is a robotic spacecraft orbiting the planet Mars. The project was developed by NASA, and contracted out to Lockheed Martin, with an expected cost for the entire mission of US$297 million. Its mission is to use spectrometers and electronic imagers to hunt for evidence of past or...

is currently orbiting Mars and taking global atmospheric temperature measurements with the TES instrument. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is currently taking daily weather and climate related observations from orbit. One of its instruments, the Mars climate sounder

Mars climate sounder

The Mars climate sounder is a major instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The Mars Climate Sounder will look both down and horizontally through the atmosphere in order to quantify the global atmosphere’s vertical variations of water vapor, dust and temperature...

is specialized for climate observation work.

Future missions

MSL

Mars Science Laboratory

The Mars Science Laboratory is a National Aeronautics and Space Administration mission with the aim to land and operate a rover named Curiosity on the surface of Mars. The MSL was launched November 26, 2011, at 10:02 EST and is scheduled to land on Mars at Gale Crater between August 6 and 20, 2012...

is scheduled for 2011, followed by the Mars Scout mission

Mars Scout Program

The Mars Scout Program was a NASA initiative to send a series of small, low-cost robotic missions to Mars, competitively selected from innovative proposals by the scientific community. The program would have had an array of missions destined to reach Mars, and study it at low costs. Each Scout...

in 2013. Both candidates (MAVEN

MAVEN (spacecraft)

Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN is a planned space exploration mission to send a space probe to orbit Mars. Scientists conducting the mission will study the atmosphere of Mars...

and Great Escape) for the 2013 mission were to have climate study implications as they are upper atmosphere scientific packages with the MAVEN spacecraft being the final choice.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Historical climate observations

Martian paleoclimatology

Weather

Clouds

Temperature

Low atmospheric pressure

Wind

Effect of dust storms

Saltation

Repeating northern annular cloud

Methane presence

Carbon dioxide carving

Mountains

Polar caps

Solar wind

Seasons

Evidence for recent climatic change

Causes of the polar changes

Assertion that solar irradiance is causing global warming on Mars

Climate Zones of Mars

Current missions

Future missions

See also

External links