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Hinson & Wilson 2002
Hinson, D.P. and Wilson, R.J. (2002). Transient eddies in the southern hemisphere of Mars. Geophysical Research Letters 29: doi: 10.1029/2001GL014103. issn: 0094-8276.

Mars Global Surveyor is providing the first observations of transient eddies in the southern hemisphere of Mars. We derive basic properties of the traveling eddies that appear in midwinter (Ls = 134¿--148¿) through analysis of radio occultation measurements at 67¿--70¿S latitude. The dominant mode has a period of ~2 solar days and a zonal wavenumber s = 3. Strong zonal variations in eddy amplitude signal the presence of a possible storm zone at 150¿--330¿E longitude. Within this longitude band the eddies achieve peak amplitudes at the 300-Pa pressure level of ~7 K in temperature and 10--15 m s-1 in meridional wind speed. The minimum temperature associated with the eddies is ~2 K colder than saturation of CO2, close to the threshold where nucleation and growth of new ice particles can occur. A simulation by a Mars general circulation model produces traveling eddies that closely resemble the observations.

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Abstract

Keywords
Planetary Sciences, Atmospheres--structure and dynamics, Meteorology and Atmospheric Dynamics, Planetary meteorology (5445, 5739), Planetary Sciences, Meteorology, Planetology, Solar System Objects, Mars
Journal
Geophysical Research Letters
http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
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