A Preliminary Study on the Identification and Spatio‐Temporal Characteristics of Martian Atmospheric Eddies

Abstract

AbstractAtmospheric eddies serve as a crucial component of global circulation on Mars. It is of great scientific and engineering significance to study the spatio‐temporal characteristics of atmospheric eddies and eddy sequences. In this paper, based on the Open access to Mars Assimilated Remote Soundings (OpenMARS) dataset, we used an eddy detection and sequence tracking method to extract a total of 4,089 eddies in LS = 109° MY28 to LS = 109° MY29, which comprised 3,385 cyclones and 704 anticyclones. Notably, the northern hemisphere exhibited a markedly higher eddy number compared with the southern hemisphere, and more than 82% of eddies had an equivalent radius greater than 400 km. These eddies mainly gathered in the interior and vicinity of basins, mountains, and broad plains in the northern hemisphere. Martian atmospheric eddies can be classified into two categories: topographic eddies, which are related to the various landforms on Mars and non‐topographic eddies, which do not show obvious terrain dependence. Additionally, our analysis yielded 83 extracted eddy sequences, with nearly 90% of them exhibiting short life cycles of less than 40 Martian days (sols). Eddy sequences mainly arise in the spring and summer seasons of the northern hemisphere. Considering the instrument criterion of minimal atmospheric eddy activity for the Tianwen‐3 mission, Chryse Planitia was identified as the optimal landing area.