Preliminary Interpretation of the Meteorological Environment Through Mars Science Laboratory Rover Environmental Monitoring Station Observations and Mesoscale Modeling

• In this study the Mars Regional AtmosphericModeling System (MRAMS) has been applied to theGale Crater region, the landing site of the Mars ScienceLaboratory (MSL) Rover Curiosity. The landingsite is at one of the lowest elevations in Gale,between the crater rim and the ~4 km high centralmound known as Mt. Sharp. As Curiosity headstoward its long term target of Mt. Sharp, the meteorologicalconditions are expected to change due to theincreasing influence of topographically-inducedthermal circulations that have been predicted by numerousprevious studies [1, 2, 3, 4]. The types ofperturbations of pressure, air and ground temperatureand wind measured by the Rover EnvironmentalMonitoring Station (REMS) [5] have never beenobserved at other locations and these data provide agreat opportunity to test the models at the most meteorologicalinteresting area measured to date. Weprovide a comparison of MRAMS predictions (pressure,air temperature, winds and ground temperature)to the REMS data available at the location of theRover for sols 21-25 (when first regular REMSmeasurements were obtained, Ls=163), sols 51-55(Ls=180), sol 215 (Ls=270) and sols 348-352 (Ls=0),in order to provide a baseline of model performance.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik -- Rymd- och flygteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering -- Aerospace Engineering (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Atmosfärsvetenskap

Atmospheric science

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)