European Space Agency

European Mars Science and Exploration Conference: Mars Express & ExoMars
ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands, 12 - 16 November, 2007

A COMPARISON OF BULK WATER ICE CLOUDS IN GM3 WITH MEASUREMENTS OF ICE

CLOUDS FROM SPICAM. Frank Daerden1, Nina Mateshvili1, Ayodeji Akingunola2 John C McConnell2,
Jacek W. Kaminski21Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy, BIRA-IASB, Ringlaan 3, B-1180 Brussels,
Belgium 2Centre for Earth and Space Science, York University, Toronto, Canada, M3J 1P3.
Frank.Daerden@aeronomie.be

The Global Multiscale Mars Model (GM3)
(Moudden and McConnell, 2005), which is based on
the Canadian operational weather forecast model
has an improved simulation of the water cycle on
Mars compared to earlier GM3 work (Moudden and
McConnell, 2007). This includes phase transitions
between water vapour and bulk ice particles, eddy
and molecular diffusion, gravitational sedimentation
and transport between the polar caps, regolith and
atmosphere. One year of nadir UV (200-310 nm)
measurements from SPICAM have been used to
retrieve cloud and dust optical thickness after
allowing for Rayleigh and aerosol scattering and
surface scattering. For the comparison with GM3 we
focus on the tropical cloud belt (Ls 90-150). The
results indicate that GM3 performs quite well for
much of the time as measured against SPICAM.
References:
Moudden, Y. and J. C. McConnell, Three-dimensional on-
line chemical modeling in a Mars general circulation
model, Icarus, 188, 18–34, 2007. Moudden, Y., and J. C.
McConnell, 2005, A new model for multiscale modelling
of the Martian atmosphere, J. Geophys. Res. (Planets),
110, E04001, doi:10.1029/2004JE002354.
Moudden, Y., and J. C. McConnell, 2005, A new model
for multiscale modelling of the Martian atmosphere, J.
Geophys. Res. (Planets), 110, E04001, doi:10.1029/
2004JE002354.

Figure 1. log optical depth of ice from GM3, (b) SPICAM optical depth for similar conditions as GM3