Aerodynamic roughness height for gravel-mantled megaripples, with implications for wind profiles near TARs on Mars

Abstract

Aerodynamic roughness heights of 1–3cm were obtained from measured wind profiles collected among fields of gravel-mantled megaripples in the high desert of the Puna region of northwestern Argentina. Roughness height appears to be relatively insensitive to the angle at which the wind was incident upon the bedforms throughout the study sites. The results represent the first wind profiling measurements for large megaripples, but they also demonstrate the importance of a careful evaluation of many potential effects that can influence the utility of wind profiling data. The same effects that influence collection of fieldwork data must also be considered in any prediction of wind profiles anticipated to occur near Transverse Aeolian Ridges and other aeolian features on Mars that are intermediate in scale between wind ripples and small sand dunes.