Effect of atmospheric dust loading on martian albedo measurements

Abstract

This work is devoted to the analysis of the variation of albedo measured by orbiting instruments with atmospheric opacity on Mars. The study has been conduced by analysing Mars Global Surveyor Thermal Emission Spectrometer (MGS-TES) data from martian regions with different surface albedo. In support of these data, synthetic spectra with different surface albedo and atmospheric opacities have been computed, so that a comparison has been performed. The synthetic spectra have been retrieved by using two different grain sizes for suspended dust (0.5 and 1.2 μm), allowing a comparison between the two models and the observations. Using the DCI, a parameter describing the quantity of dust deposited on the surface, the effectiveness of the single scattering approximation has been tested for low atmospheric opacity by analysing the quality of the linear fit up to different atmospheric opacity. For more opaque conditions two kinds of fits have been applied to the data, linear and second-order degree polynomial. In this case, we found that the polynomial fit better describes the observations. The analysis of these data made it possible to notice a peculiar trend, already reported by Christensen (1988), of the albedo over Syrtis Major after the occurrence of dust storms, but, differently from that work, now the study of DCI together with atmospheric opacity and albedo allowed us to robustly confirm the hypothesis made by Christensen. Finally, the comparison between observations and synthetic spectra computed with models with different particles grain sizes indicates that dust particles of 0.5 μm diameter are the most effective to change the aerosol atmospheric opacity on Mars.