Carbon Dioxide Retrievals From NOMAD-SO on ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and Temperature Profiles Retrievals With the Hydrostatic Equilibrium Equation: 1. Description of the Method
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Authors
Trompet, L.
Vandaele, A.C.
Thomas, I.
Aoki, S.
Daerden, F.
Erwin, J.
Flimon, Z.
Mahieux, A.
Neary, L.
Robert, S.
Villanueva, G.
Liuzzi, G.
Lopez-Valverde, M.A.
Brines, A.
Bellucci, G.
Lopez-Moreno, J.J.
Patel, M.R.
Discipline
Physical sciences
Audience
Scientific
Date
2023Metadata
Show full item recordDescription
The Solar Occultation (SO) channel of the Nadir and Occultation for Mars Discovery (NOMAD) instrument has been scanning the Martian atmosphere for almost 2 Martian years. In this work, we present a subset of the NOMAD SO data measured at the mesosphere at the terminator. From the data set, we investigated 968 vertical profiles of carbon dioxide density and temperature covering the Martian Year (MY) 35 as well as MY 36 up to a solar longitude (Ls) of 135° and altitudes around 60–100 km. While carbon dioxide density profiles are directly retrieved from the spectral signature in the spectra, temperature profiles are more challenging to retrieve as unlike density profiles, temperature profiles can present some spurious features if the regularization is not correctly managed. Comparing seven regularization methods, we found that the expected error estimation method provides the best regularization parameters. The vertical resolution of the profiles is on average 1.6 km. Numerous warm layers and cold pockets appear in this data set. The warm layers are found in the Northern hemisphere at dawn and dusk as well as in the Southern hemisphere at dawn. Strong warm layers are present in more than 13.5% of the profiles. The Southern hemisphere at dusk does not present any warm layer between Ls 50° and 150°. The height and latitudinal distribution of those warm layers were similar in MY 35 and MY 36 during the first half of the year (Ls = 0°–135°).
Citation
Trompet, L.; Vandaele, A.C.; Thomas, I.; Aoki, S.; Daerden, F.; Erwin, J.; Flimon, Z.; Mahieux, A.; Neary, L.; Robert, S.; Villanueva, G.; Liuzzi, G.; Lopez-Valverde, M.A.; Brines, A.; Bellucci, G.; Lopez-Moreno, J.J.; Patel, M.R. (2023). Carbon Dioxide Retrievals From NOMAD-SO on ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and Temperature Profiles Retrievals With the Hydrostatic Equilibrium Equation: 1. Description of the Method. , Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, Vol. 128, Issue 3, e2022JE007277, DOI: 10.1029/2022JE007277.Identifiers
scopus:
Type
Article
Peer-Review
Yes
Language
eng