Sub-grid Scale Processes: towards a Next-Generation Dust Lifting Scheme for Martian GCMs

D. P. Mulholland (1) , Aymeric Spiga (2) , Constantino Listowski (3) , P. L. Read (4)

1 Department of Meteorology [Reading]
2 LMD - Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (UMR 8539)
3 PLANETO - LATMOS
4 AOPP - Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics [Oxford]

A realistic spatio-temporal variability in atmospheric dust loading is essential to accurately simulate the Martian climate, yet dust lifting in Mars Global Climate Models (MGCMs) is still in relative infancy. We detail several improvements can be made to lifting schemes, following recent developments in observational data and MGCM physics, and taking inspiration from terrestrial dust emission work. The impacts of these additions are found to be significant, though they act in somewhat opposite directions – which perhaps allowed earlier dust-lifting MGCMs to perform as well as they have.

Domaines: Planétologie et astrophysique de la terre [astro-ph.EP]

D. P. Mulholland, Aymeric Spiga, Constantino Listowski, P. L. Read. Sub-grid Scale Processes: towards a Next-Generation Dust Lifting Scheme for Martian GCMs. The Fifth International Workshop on the Mars Atmosphere: Modelling and Observations, Jan 2014, Oxford, United Kingdom. ⟨hal-01139630⟩