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C.E. Newman, S.R. Lewis, P.L. Read (AOPP, Oxford)
The dust-transporting Mars general circulation model includes a dust advection scheme and parameterizations of dust processes (lifting, mixing and sedimentation), all of which depend on the state of the model atmosphere. Feedbacks between the atmospheric state and dust distribution become possible if the former is also able to respond to changes in the latter.
Such radiatively-active dust transport, with parameterized lifting, allows the production of multi-annual, self-consistent simulations of the atmospheric state and dust cycle, including the spontaneous production of dust storms. Parameterizations of dust lifting for which lifting is relatively rare will be shown to give the closest match to observations, for both the near-surface wind stress and dust devil lifting mechanisms. A storm produced in one such simulation (see figure) will be compared with a similar storm observed by the Mars Global Surveyor Thermal Emission Spectrometer.
This work was funded by the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: newmanc@atm.ox.ac.uk