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A.F.C. Bridger (Meteorology Dept., San Jose State Univ.), R.M. Haberle (NASA Ames Research Center)
Multi-annual simulations with the NASA Ames Mars General Circulation Model (MGCM) show significant year-to-year variability in various atmospheric measures. Since these simulations have the same dust distribution imposed every year, this variability can be viewed as a measure of the intrinsic variabiity of the atmosphere. In this talk, we focus on the surface wind and stress fields from our multi-annual simulations, and on the atmosphere's ability to lift dust from the surface. With an assumed infinite surface dust reservoir, we compute a measure of the annual dust deflation potential associated with the stress field. At the end of any given year in a simulation, the maximum dust deflation is typically around 1 cm. However, variations as large as +/- 14% are seen in some years.
We will discuss deflation results from multi-annual simulations. We will focus on the following questions: (a) How large is the year-to-year variability in deflation both at specific locations (e.g., Hellas), and globally? (b) Is the year-to-year variability confined to certain locations and seasons? (c) What are the possible impacts of this instrinsic variability in dust deflation when trying to account for year-to-year variations in Global Dust Storm (GDS) activity?
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: bridger@met.sjsu.edu
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 36 #4
© 2004. The American Astronomical Soceity.