Polar Storms

Hort

I, like you, thought that some of the pressing questions on Mars that seemed to be amenable to being answered by the published capabilities of the Phoenix instrumentation would have been answered but that doesn't seem as if it will happen to any significant extent, except that perhaps the deficient instrumentation might have discovered some sign of organics.

In the meantime I think, you, more than anyone else have worked far above the call of enthusiasm to produce numerous images in several different innovative ways to try to show to all the weirdness that exists at the micro level at the phoenix site.

It does'nt seem as if many persons have appreciated that work beyond the pretty pictures aspect but I still think that some real scientists will discover the hortonheardawho contributions sometime in the future and will continue the exploration when the time is more amenable to look seriously at Martian surface strangeness. Who knows? Perhaps it is occurring even now and some young or not so young scientist is gathering information, stimulated by your OM images, that might even get published on the results of this mission next year.

I tried to help out especially at the times when interest waned and Mann and rpage and a very few others also made good contributions but we missed some of the stalwarts from the Meridini Gusev tour.

We also must not forget Fred/Darwin who between his own bouts of weirdness, gave us some insights that could well be found to have advanced knowledge of Mars, as well as Brian, who played the "its-just-rocks" geology role well and contributed enormously to the knowledge base in this forum.

One should note however that despite the apparent results not being as definitive as some of us would have hoped re. the presence of life, past or present, at the meridiani site, on balance it has advanced that hope so that realistically there should be more persons who consider that there is a possibility of the presence of extant microbial life near the surface of Mars

Winston

Oops

In the last paragraph that should have been Phoenix site not meridiani site.

Winston

sol 119 cloud animation:

the best so far!

LWS, Well said. Horton's work is a tribute to Mars Explorations. The few contributors here are a treasure in this very special forum. We need all the good contributors here. We need geologist, meteorological, biological, technician, all kind of people who can assist to refine the views of the observed stuff. -Sorry guys, my grammar do not match my views, and that's my swaddle.

--Mizar.

The instruments did observe snow aloft at 2.5 miles. We have seen snow in the trench. The scientist will not make this observation because, “it would appear like,” is not good enough. In the real world of science it should not be.

On Earth the dry air at the surface can call snow not to reach the ground. On Mars the moisture is higher at the ground level at night. A dry tongue can not be ruled out but I say again, frost does not blow.

It is a joy to see these remarkable images. The rolling balls of fluid, the movement under the soil and snow in the trench. Wow.

Fred

Excellent Hort!

Are you sure that is not a video of the whole of the British summer 2008?

Phoenix Sol 124 view of clouds on the horizon:

pressure

I have never understood why anyone would believe that the Martian sky would be brick red. Even at 10x the pressure the Earth sky is black.

Earth view of sky at 10 KM:

pressure >100 MB.

The parser gobbled up my < 10 MB (less than 10 MB) for the Martian pressure.

Outstanding Hort. With all due respect.

Fred

Another key fact about the discovery of snow from the north polar clouds is that it disproves the contention that the low amount of water vapor in the Mars atmosphere means there can not be precipitation from clouds on Mars.
The thickness of the clouds/fogs in this image at Valles Marineris near the equator appears much denser than the clouds seen so far above Phoenix:

Then it is even likelier there could be precipitation from these near equatorial clouds as well.
Another example of dense, low lying, near equatorial clouds:

From:

Martian Clouds.
http://www.solarviews.com/eng/marscld.htm

That cloud precipitation might be wide spread on Mars has major implications for the understanding of the water cycle on Mars.

Bob Clark

The same way fog and snow are being found at Phoenix, sometime in the future those of us who insisted that spirit and meridiani "muds" were real and not optical illusions due to fine fines, will be validated.

Winston

The images in reply 150 are formed just as fog is formed on Earth as cold moist air is pooled in the trench. I see frost and fog with no dense clouds. The surface is clearly visible through the fog. This is a very stable environment.

What is most striking is the amount of moisture and the potential moisture source. With no oceans or ice pack available the most likely source is periodic surface eruptions as seen by satellite and Rover data. You can not have fog without moisture.

I have seen no organized storm systems in the Equatorial regions.

Fred

Fred, remember the Valles Mariners canyon system is kilometers deep. In those images they could indeed be low lying dense clouds.
Both fogs and low lying clouds are described here:

-------------------------------------------
NASA SP-441: VIKING ORBITER VIEWS OF MARS
--------------------------------------------
- THE ATMOSPHERE -
"Early Morning Clouds in the Tharsis Montes and Valles Marineris
Region. Ascraeus Mons and Pavonis Mons are prominently displayed in
this mosaic, and dense cloud blankets cling to their northern slopes.
High cirrus clouds lie to the west of Tharsis, and waves are visible
in the clouds surrounding the peaks. Bands of clouds appearing to
have a cellular structure extend north from the canyon, and the areas
within and immediately surrounding the chasm exhibit water-ice fogs.
[211-5049; 5°S, 105°W]"
"Early Morning Surface Fog. The presence of morning fogs in some
crater and channel bottoms is a Viking discovery with possible
implications for the future biological exploration of Mars. These
early morning views of the Memnonia region were taken one-half hour
apart using a violet filter to enhance the contrast of the
condensates. The areas marked by arrows are noticeably brighter in
the later picture. The fogs indicate specific spots where water is
exchanged, probably on a daily cycle, between the surface and the
atmosphere. The surface and lower air layers in this region become
unusually cold at night because of the thermal properties of the
surface. When the surface warms in the morning, it seems that a small
amount of water vapor-estimated to be about one-millionth of a meter
thick if liquefied is driven off; this vapor recondenses in the
atmosphere, which warms more slowly, to form a ground fog of ice
particles. [P17487; 13°S,147° W]"
"Early Morning Clouds in Noctis Labyrinthus. Condensate clouds are
seen here in early morning in the canyons of Labyrinthus Noctis,
which lies at the western end of the equatorial Valles Marineris
system. This picture, which covers about 90 000 km2, was made by
combining three frames of the same field taken through violet, green,
and red filters. Although these clouds lie mainly down inside the
canyons, they evidently extend above the walls and spill over some of
the surrounding plateau. Like most condensate clouds in the Martian
troposphere, they are believed to be composed of water-ice crystals.
[P18114, 9°S, 95°W]"
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-441/ch12.htm

A seasonal cloud belt has been known to arise on Mars since the time of the Viking orbiters. For more info google: Mars aphelion cloud belt.

Bob Clark

Sol 126 at 1500. Nice cumuliform low cloud. Snow shower? Will investigate your cloud belt later today Bob.

Fred

Very dramatic image, and also very close to an Earthly analogy. Thank you Fred.

I'm wondering about how much these clouds will obstruct solar energy to Phoenix.

Here is a sol 127 dust devil animation. I have slightly enhanced the dust devils ( + 2x differences).

I see 5, maybe 6 separate dust devils.

The most interesting feature is the dark advancing cloud shadow on the ground that seems to be near the dust devils.

Also important for the acceptance of snowfall on Mars is the possibility of snowfall being a possible explanation of the unexpectedly high amounts of water/ice by the GRS readings even in some near equatorial regions on Mars.
This becomes especially important when you take into account the fact that a seasonal cloud belt has been known to form around the equator on Mars since Viking:

Figure 2: Tharsis morning cloud and afternoon clouds on March 6 (upper row) and March 7 (lower row) in 1995 (Ls = 68°)...

Figure 6: Low latitude cloud belt in the Arabia, Amazonis and Chryse regions in 1997 and 1999...

From:

Diurnal variation of Martian water-ice clouds in Tharsis region of the low latitude cloud belt: Observations in 1995-1999 apparitions.
A&A 384, 678-688 (2002)
[link]

Note that high water/ice amounts were seen by GRS in both Tharsis and Arabia.

Now remember the images I showed of dense clouds over Valles Marineris and Noctis Labyrinthus? High water/ice amounts were found by GRS in these areas as well:

MARS ODYSSEY NEUTRON SPECTROMETER WATER-EQUIVALENT HYDROGEN: COMPARISON
WITH GLACIAL LANDFORMS ON THARSIS.
R. C. Elphic, W. C. Feldman1, T. H. Prettyman, R. L. Tokar, D. J. Lawrence, J. W. Head, III, S. Maurice
"The western slopes of Olympus
Mons, and the Tharsis Montes have higher WEH
abundance than the eastern slopes. There are also enhanced WEH abundances centered on Noctis Labyrinthus and western Valles Marineris."
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2005/pdf/1805.pdf

Bob Clark

Bob.

Thanks for the post. The satellite data does indeed show water ice clouds. The problem is we do not have surface data that shows mid and low level clouds associated with organized storm centers at the equator.

To get precipitation we need a lifting mechanism like a storm, frontal boundary or mountain range. Even these satellite images show what could be high thin clouds. We have certainly seen now low level clouds at the rover site.

The mid latitudes have shown oragraphic clouds that could and most likely do produce snowfall. Image below.

The clouds and fog in the valley is a stable environment without mixing or lift and any pecip would be akin to drizzle or micro-precipitants. With out the known moisture source or availability this is impossible to calculate.

Thanks for the devil animation Hort. Still makes me scratch my head.

Fred

Hi Fred / Hort

I can't get the Electric Universe theories out of my head when I see these Dust Devil anims.

Hort, Still certain there is no possibility of their theories having some validity?

Winston

Wow,

Stratacumulus deck passing by. So Earthlike. Maybe a movie is in our future.

Fred