CO2CycleTwoMartianYearsof.PDFVIP

CO2 Cycle: Two Martian Years of Polar IR Observations. T.N. Titus, United States Geological Survey, Flagstaff, AZ, USA (ttitus@usgs.gov) Introduction: One-quarter of the Martian atmosphere is cycled through the polar caps,1 condensing out in the fall and winter and sublimating in the spring and summer. This process of CO2 exchange between the polar caps and the atmosphere dominates the current Martian climate. The Mariner 9 and Viking missions significantly improved our understanding of polar processes and composition.2 Perhaps the greatest result of these missions was the discovery of how little we actually knew about the Martian polar caps and the CO2 cycle. Several of the questions raised by these early space missions are yet to be resolved. However, in 1997, Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) entered Mars orbit with the promise of answering old questions and raising several new ones. On board MGS was the Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES). Even before MGS entered mapping orbit, TES was improving our understanding of polar processes, reveal- ing the truly bizarre nature of solid CO2 under Martian conditions.3 Currently, MGS TES has mapped 2 full Martian years of thermal behavior. These two years represent two endmembers of Martian climate behavior, one of the clearest years and one of the dustiest years observed on Mars. Figures 1 and 2 show TES bolometer brightness temperatures for the north and south polar regions. The difference in dust activity between the two years is apparent in Figure 2. An exploration of the defining differences between these two years should reveal clues as how the northern and southern polar processes couple with each other, as well as how seasonal processes couple with subsequent seasons. CO2 Snow and Ice: Early TES observations have provided evidence of CO2 snowstorms,4 as well as slab ice formations (e.g. the cryptic region3). Both winter polar caps are predominately CO2 slab ice. Cold spots, which are most likely composed of fallen snow, o