What is it about?
Clouds often form in the Earth's atmosphere from condensing water vapor. Condensation of vapor in a cloud heats the surrounding air and can enable it rise relative to the surrounding air, like the ascent of a hot air balloon. The ascent of air in strong thunderstorms can be extremely violent and mix air through the moist atmospheric layer where most weather happens into the drier layer above it. Recently, it has been demonstrated that similar mixing is taking place in Mars's atmosphere. This study describes the thunderstorm-like weather systems powered by solar-heated dust that are responsible for this transport and how they manifest in various kinds of Martian dust storms.
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Why is it important?
First, this study provides unprecedented observational information about a significant meteorological phenomenon in Mars's atmosphere, including useful constraints for atmospheric modeling. Second, the transport of dust and water above 50 km altitude that these dust-powered thunderstorm-like weather systems produce is implicated in enhanced hydrogen escape from Mars during southern summer as well as regional and global dust storm activity. Thus, better understanding this phenomenon may be helpful for understanding water loss from Mars for however long Mars has had a thin atmosphere and active dust cycle.
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This page is a summary of: An Observational Overview of Dusty Deep Convection in Martian Dust Storms, Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, November 2019, American Meteorological Society,
DOI: 10.1175/jas-d-19-0042.1.
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