Seasonal cycle of water vapor in the atmosphere of mars as revealed from the MAWD/Viking 1 and 2 experiment

Abstract

The most detailed information on the seasonal evolution of water vapor distribution in the Martian atmosphere was obtained by the Mars Atmospheric Water Detector (MAWD), which was a five-channel spectrometer operating aboard the Viking 1 and 2 spacecraft in 1977–1980, and from the very recent observations by the Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) on the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. The TES results show a considerably larger amount of water vapor near the perihelion of Mars (summer in the southern hemisphere) than the estimates based on the MAWD data for this season, which is characterized by the development of global dust storms. The TES and MAWD instruments operated in different spectral regions (20–50 μm and 1.38 μm, respectively), and this could result in the aforementioned difference because of the effect of aerosol scattering on the intensity of the H2O bands, which becomes significant at short wavelengths. We considered the effect of aerosol scattering on the water vapor content measured in the 1.38-μm band, taking into account the different geometries of observations, and restored the H2O content from the MAWD data with allowance for multiple scattering. We obtained a seasonal and spatial distribution of water vapor that showed better agreement with the TES data and, thus, indicated the stability of the hydrological cycle on Mars. Periodic structures, which could possibly be associated with the influence of the stationary planetary waves, are reliably revealed in the zonal distribution of the atmospheric water vapor. The seasonal variability of the wave structures correlates with variations of the latitude gradient of water vapor. This could indicate that wave processes contribute considerably to the meridional water transport in the Martian atmosphere.