From a Texas A&M Press Release
Is there such a thing as “weather” on Mars? There are some doubts, considering the planet’s atmosphere is only 1 percent as dense as that of the Earth. Mars, however, definitely has clouds, drastically low temperatures and out-of-this-world dust storms, and Istvan Szunyogh, a Texas A&M professor of atmospheric sciences, has been awarded a NASA grant to analyze and forecast Martian weather.
Mars is the most Earth-like planet we know, but it is still quite different. For example, it is much colder on Mars.
The south pole of the Earth is covered by water ice, but the south pole of Mars wears a dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide) cap. In winter, the temperature at the poles can dip to -140°C (-220 degrees Fahrenheit), which is so cold that even carbon dioxide freezes.
“Planet-encircling Martian dust storms, which occur every two to four Mars years, can cover the whole planet with dust for months,” notes Szunyogh, who is working with colleagues from the University of Maryland and the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, N.J., to forecast Martian weather.
Why care about weather on Mars? After all, nobody lives, works or goes to school there.
“Martian weather forecasts, in the short term, can drastically increase the safety of landing robotic exploration missions,” comments colleague Mark Lemmon, a Texas A&M professor of atmospheric sciences who has led or participated in many Mars exploratory events. “In the long run, it is indispensible for the safe returning of astronauts in future manned explorations.
“The two rovers currently working on Mars are solar-powered, and their lives end when their batteries run out,” Lemmon adds. “Dust storms block the sun and shorten their battery life, and winds, on the other hand, can clear their solar panels so their batteries recharge faster.”
Weather forecasting is not tossing dice. It must build on solid data.
“All weather forecasts, including those on TV, are based on model forecasts of the different physical parameters of the Earth’s atmosphere such as temperature, wind and pressure,” Szunyogh says. “The main goal of our project is to explore the possibility of obtaining accurate quantitative estimates of these parameters of the Martian atmosphere.
“These parameters will be obtained from the available remotely sensed Martian observations,” he adds. “Then the data can be fed into Mars global circulation models, producing Martian weather forecasts like what we have for Earth.”
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The martian dust is mainly glacial flour and dried clay. It has roughly the particle size and consistency of talcum powder, which is why MER-B is presently stuck in a dust patch.
I want a grant to move to a nice warm area with nice people around to study how great a life I could have with Grant money? I’m just saying.
“Martian weather forecasts can be tricky” he says. He should take a look at how “tricky” weather forecasts are right here in Phoneix, AZ.
Even the word “forecasts” is a misnomer here in Phoenix. Anyone who pays close attention can easily see that what the weather boffins are up to is attempting to tell us what is actually happening, and frequently they get even that wrong. Oh, we do get “predictions” for weather for a week or 10 days in the future, but anyone who takes that sort of thing seriously is in for a lot of weather trouble.
A good number of times in my lifetime (in other states too) I have seen the weather forecast of “fair and clear for the next several days”, and a large storm strike from just out of “nowhere”. Many times just a couple of hours or less after the “fair and clear” forecast was made.
Now the weather forecasters do update these forecasts on a regular basis, which is in essence, watching closely what is actually happening weather wise or temperature wise, and changing from a wrong forecast yesterday to what is happening now.
“I had a lot of bad luck predicting which horses would run well at the race track which I usually go to, so I am going to try out a different race track.” says the horse racing (and betting) enthusiast.
I think its a great idea. If the gross “climate” variations are in sync with earth’s (e.g. decadal reduction or increase in ice caps) then we would know the sun had a bigger role than IPCC thinks. Perhaps we already have this gross data, since some organization or another has been taking images of Mars over a long continuous period – anyone? Also, perhaps, with such a high relative content of CO2 in the atmosphere and the seasonal variations in it, we can calculate the radiative forcing contribution of CO2 above the surface warming by the sun alone. Admittedly, with global warming on Mars, we still wouldn’t be able to take our gloves off.