Modeling Mountain Gravity Waves in the Martian Upper Atmosphere

Mountain waves (also known as orographic gravity waves) are atmospheric gravity waves generated when winds blow across mountains. It is known that gravity waves have a significant impact on the upper atmosphere. A relatively small amount of energy and momentum transported from tropospheric altitudes to the upper atmosphere can have a profound effect. Recent developments have indicated that upper atmospheric winds on Mars are directly related to the mountains below. The mountains on Mars are extremely high, much higher those on Earth. Hence, we expect mountain waves to be more significant on Mars than possibly anywhere else in the Solar System. In spite of this, no modeling of mountain waves has occurred in recent times!

Dr. Michael Hickey has developed a spectral version of his full-wave gravity wave model that has allowed him to model the generation, propagation and dissipation of mountain waves in the Venus atmosphere. This is on-going research. For this project, the Venus model is applied to the Mars data. The calculations are ran through a Fortran script and then used for plotting in Matlab. The model will be predominately analyzed according to the following parameters: mean temperature and winds; viscosity; thermal conductivity.