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H. Houben (Space Physics Research Institute), Thermal Emission Spectrometer Team
During the early aerobraking phase of its mission, Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) experienced a sudden increase in upper atmospheric density associated with a regional dust storm originating in Noachis. Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) observations at the time (when MGS was in a highly elliptical orbit with period greater than 30 hours), viewed a limited longitude range of the northern hemisphere, but gave more comprehensive coverage of the southern hemisphere source region. Although only atmospheric temperature and dust opacity can be inferred directly from the inversion of TES spectra, data assimilation techniques which incorporate a predictive dynamical model -- in this case a low resolution, baroclinic spectral general circulation model -- can be used to fit all the important meteorological variables (temperatures, winds, surface pressure, and thermal forcing) in the lower atmosphere for the time period in question. This will give us our first complete dynamical description of conditions before, during, and after a large Martian dust storm.