Weather reports for Mars

louis · 2012-03-17 19:14:05

Perhaps you all know about this site...but I haven't come across this before.

Weather reports for Mars from the orbiter.

http://www.msss.com/msss_images/latest_weather.html

JoshNH4H · 2012-03-18 23:31:00

I hadn't seen that before, that's really interesting. I have an app on my phone that gives the time at different locations on Mars (There is also a program that can do it for your computer, I direct anyone interested to Google, a search for "Mars Time Program" or something similar should yield adequate results.

Edit: I stopped being lazy and googled it myself. It can be found here.

Thus far it appears that my proposal to abolish time zones (as well as daylight savings) on the Red Planet has not gained much traction, though I still hold out hope Timezones really just make it more difficult to live in a global system; For example, what would be wrong with the US keeping time on UTC? The only difference would be that work (on the East Coast) might technically start at 14:00 instead of 9:00, even though it would still really be the same time.

louis · 2012-03-19 07:41:29

JoshNH4H wrote:

I hadn't seen that before, that's really interesting. I have an app on my phone that gives the time at different locations on Mars (There is also a program that can do it for your computer, I direct anyone interested to Google, a search for "Mars Time Program" or something similar should yield adequate results.
Edit: I stopped being lazy and googled it myself. It can be found here.
Thus far it appears that my proposal to abolish time zones (as well as daylight savings) on the Red Planet has not gained much traction, though I still hold out hope Timezones really just make it more difficult to live in a global system; For example, what would be wrong with the US keeping time on UTC? The only difference would be that work (on the East Coast) might technically start at 14:00 instead of 9:00, even though it would still really be the same time.

Contractual relations might be a bit trixy. Let's say you had a burger bar franchise operation. You might want to say "all premises shall be open between the hours of 7am and 9pm" for your franchise holders. But with universal time you couldn't do that. You'd have to research the time for each specific location and write in specific hours.

But, I think for Mars it might make sense.

JoshNH4H · 2012-03-19 10:43:41

I mean, there is no reason the franchise couldn't say that they have to be open 14 hours a day and let the time be set by the franchise. But it's mostly immaterial I guess.

I would expect that there wouldn't be such big differences in the weather on Mars for the same day in different years, with the exception of dust storms. Does anyone know if that's true?

Midoshi · 2012-03-19 15:14:56

JoshNH4H wrote:

I would expect that there wouldn't be such big differences in the weather on Mars for the same day in different years, with the exception of dust storms. Does anyone know if that's true?

Yes, the predictability of seasonal Martian weather is very stable, far more so than Earth. The scientific community is looking forward to getting back data from the REMS weather station on MSL and using it with the available satellite observations and mesoscale weather models to better understand how Mars' climate works. We've gotten good at using this trifecta over the past few decades on Earth (surface station, satellite imaging, computer model), but on Mars we're still rather data poor.

JoshNH4H · 2012-03-20 12:46:56

I guess that's not too surprising. I hope you'll excuse my lack of knowledge on this topic, but what does the phrase "climate model" really mean? Would it be a martain analog to how the prevailing winds in the US usually blow north and east? What does a climate model predict, and with what detail?

Midoshi · 2012-03-21 10:01:26

In a climate model the atmosphere of the planet is divided into 3D 'boxes' on a latitudinal/longitudinal grid with vertical layers. The horizontal resolution is usually 64x32 or 128x64 for Mars models; that would be roughly 5.6° and 2.8° squares respectively. Higher resolutions can be prohibitively long to run if you don't have access to a supercomputer (it can takes weeks in realtime to complete a run of a few years in simulation time). The vertical resolution is usually on the order of 10 to 100 layers, depending on what you want to do with the model. Radiation transfer, fluid transfer, and photochemistry in these boxes are calculated, and usually output every couple hours (in simulation time). This gives you things like temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction (all at the surface and altitude), dust storm patterns, CO2 ice coverage at the winter pole, ozone distributions, and much more. We compare these with our satellite observations, and can use the model to explain observations we hadn't understood before and/or use the observations to correct the model when it is not predicting reality accurately.

The results of such models have been used to plan orbit insertion and landing of NASA's past several missions to Mars, as well as operations on the surface. They are also used to explain climate change. For example, we see yardangs which are not aligned with the current wind patterns, and we see polygonal frost heave patterns near the equator where the current climate cannot support water ice near the surface. In the model it is easy to do things like change Mars' obliquity, eccentricity, and atmosphere thickness to try to explain such things.

louis · 2012-06-29 13:29:49

In case any newbies aren't aware of this site:

http://www.msss.com/msss_images/latest_weather.html

It's great for Mars weather and latest views of the planet.

RobertDyck · 2014-03-01 18:32:55

Today's weather report on Mars:
http://cab.inta-csic.es/rems/marsweather.html

Air: high -22°C, low -84°C
Ground: high -7°C, low -96°C
Pressure: 843 Pa (0.843 kPa)
Sunrise 5:52am, Sunset 5:34pm local time
Sunny

Today's weather for Winnipeg:
Temperature at 6:00pm: -26.7°C, prediction for the low tonight: -33°C
Windchill: current -38, tonight's low -44
Pressure: 103.6 kPa
Sunrise 7:12am, Sunset 6:10pm
Sunny

louis · 2014-03-01 21:01:47

RobertDyck wrote:

Today's weather report on Mars:
http://cab.inta-csic.es/rems/marsweather.html
Air: high -22°C, low -84°C
Ground: high -7°C, low -96°C
Pressure: 843 Pa (0.843 kPa)
Sunrise 5:52am, Sunset 5:34pm local time
Sunny
Today's weather for Winnipeg:
Temperature at 6:00pm: -26.7°C, prediction for the low tonight: -33°C
Windchill: current -38, tonight's low -44
Pressure: 103.6 kPa
Sunrise 7:12am, Sunset 6:10pm
Sunny

Nice one Robert!

Brings home that we aren't a million miles away from Mars...OK we are but you know what I mean.

Also, while it may be v. cold on Mars, you aren't going to get buried in a snowstorm or find your power lines collapse under the weight of ice. In many ways Mars is a more benign environment than Earth.

RGClark · 2014-03-01 23:03:26

RobertDyck wrote:

Today's weather report on Mars:
http://cab.inta-csic.es/rems/marsweather.html
Air: high -22°C, low -84°C
Ground: high -7°C, low -96°C
Pressure: 843 Pa (0.843 kPa)
Sunrise 5:52am, Sunset 5:34pm local time
Sunny
Today's weather for Winnipeg:
Temperature at 6:00pm: -26.7°C, prediction for the low tonight: -33°C
Windchill: current -38, tonight's low -44
Pressure: 103.6 kPa
Sunrise 7:12am, Sunset 6:10pm
Sunny

Thanks for that link. Navigating along that page I found a graphic of the temperatures during the first 200 sols at the Curiosity site:

You see the air temperatures quite frequently reached 0 degrees C. And the ground temperatures were frequently significantly above freezing at maximum daytime temperature.
The air temperature is especially interesting because of the frequent observation of low lying fogs and hazes at the Curiosity site. Then the H2O contained in these fogs/hazes could melt to liquid when the air temperature reached the melting point.

Bob Clark

RobertDyck · 2014-03-01 23:51:30

The point was over New Year's Day, mainstream media claimed Winnipeg colder than Mars. With weather reports on Mars. Today a local member of the Mars Society asked if today is also colder than Mars.
CBC
CTV
Yahoo
Winnipeg Free Press
Winnipeg Sun
Ottawa Sun
Time News Feed, with link to CNN

Of course it all started with the Facebook page for the Manitoba Museum. Scott Young is manager of the Planetarium and Science Centre. I suspected it was Scott.

tahanson43206 · 2021-02-04 15:08:55

Here is an update that (I hope) fits into Louis' topic here:

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/scienti … 35120.html

In other weather-centric news in the galaxy, experts also saw something interesting on one of our neighboring planets: Mars. In a research paper published in Science Advances, scientists noted that the summer landslides that occur on the "Red Planet" are due to underground salts and melting ice. Researchers from SETI Institute made a mock-up of frozen soil on Mars in a miniature lab experiment and noticed that it thawed and turned into slushy water in summer-like temperatures that would actually occur on the planet. These findings help scientists understand Mars' "dynamic and active environment" that is still ever-changing. "I am excited about the prospect of microscale liquid water on Mars in near-surface environments where ice and salts are present," said Dr. Janice Bishop, a study author and SETI Institute senior research scientist. "This could revolutionize our perspective on habitability just below the surface on Mars today."

The article itself is about an exo-planet with interesting/surprising weather patterns.

it concluded with the off-topic paragraph quoted.

(th)

SpaceNut · 2021-02-04 17:33:20

We have many telescopes, rovers, orbiters, landers observing Mars these days trying to detect all sorts of physics which would if the right pieces come together tell about early conditions that formed the planets and life.

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#1 2012-03-17 19:14:05

Weather reports for Mars

#2 2012-03-18 23:31:00

Re: Weather reports for Mars

#3 2012-03-19 07:41:29

Re: Weather reports for Mars

#4 2012-03-19 10:43:41

Re: Weather reports for Mars

#5 2012-03-19 15:14:56

Re: Weather reports for Mars

#6 2012-03-20 12:46:56

Re: Weather reports for Mars

#7 2012-03-21 10:01:26

Re: Weather reports for Mars

#8 2012-06-29 13:29:49

Re: Weather reports for Mars

#9 2014-03-01 18:32:55

Re: Weather reports for Mars

#10 2014-03-01 21:01:47

Re: Weather reports for Mars

#11 2014-03-01 23:03:26

Re: Weather reports for Mars

#12 2014-03-01 23:51:30

Re: Weather reports for Mars

#13 2021-02-04 15:08:55

Re: Weather reports for Mars

#14 2021-02-04 17:33:20

Re: Weather reports for Mars

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