EGU24-11239, updated on 09 Mar 2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-11239
EGU General Assembly 2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Turbulence statistics of terrestrial Mars-analog and Martian dust devils

Orkun Temel1,2, Ozgur Karatekin1, Víctor Apéstigue Palacio3, Toledo Daniel3, Ignacio Arruego3, Fulvio Franchi4, German Martinez5, and Cem Berk Senel2
Orkun Temel et al.
  • 1KU Leuven, Institute of Astronomy, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Leuven, Belgium (orkun.temel@oma.be)
  • 2Royal Observatory of Belgium, Department of Reference Systems and Planetology, Belgium
  • 3Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial INTA, Madrid, Spain
  • 4Department of Earth and Environmental Science, Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST), Palapye, Botswana
  • 5Lunar and Planetary Institute, Universities Space Research Association, Washington, DC, United States

Convective instabilities in the lowermost part of the atmosphere, so called the planetary boundary layer, can lead to the formation of convective vortices and form dust devils both on Earth and Mars. We performed mesoscale simulations for a Mars-analog terrestrial site, Makgadikgadi Pan - Botswana [1,2], where a state-of-the art field campaign was conducted to investigate the terrestrial dust devils, and the InSight landing site [3] using WRF/MarsWRF models [4,5]. We then combined our atmospheric modeling with in-situ observations of wind and pressure to perform a comparative boundary-layer meteorology study. We focused on the length and time of scales of turbulence and investigated the turbulent spectrum.

[1] Toledo, D., Apéstigue, V., Arruego, I., Montoro, F., Martinez-Oter, J., Serrano, F., Yela, M., Carrasco-Blázquez, I. and Franchi, F., 2022, September. Investigating dust devils on Mars through the Makadikadi Salt Pans analogue (Botswana). In European Planetary Science Congress (pp. EPSC2022-485).
[2] Toledo, D., Apéstigue, V., Martinez-Oter, J., Franchi, F., Serrano, F., Yela, M., De La Torre Juarez, M., Rodriguez-Manfredi, J.A. and Arruego, I., 2023. Using the Perseverance MEDA-RDS to identify and track dust devils and dust-lifting gust fronts. Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences, 10, p.1221726.
[3] Lorenz, R.D., Spiga, A., Lognonné, P., Plasman, M., Newman, C.E. and Charalambous, C., 2021. The whirlwinds of Elysium: A catalog and meteorological characteristics of “dust devil” vortices observed by InSight on Mars. Icarus, 355, p.114119.
[4] Temel, O., Senel, C.B., Porchetta, S., Muñoz-Esparza, D., Mischna, M.A., Van Hoolst, T., van Beeck, J. and Karatekin, Ö., 2021. Large eddy simulations of the Martian convective boundary layer: towards developing a new planetary boundary layer scheme. Atmospheric Research, 250, p.105381.
[5] Temel, O., Bricteux, L. and van Beeck, J., 2018. Coupled WRF-OpenFOAM study of wind flow over complex terrain. Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics, 174, pp.152-169.

How to cite: Temel, O., Karatekin, O., Apéstigue Palacio, V., Daniel, T., Arruego, I., Franchi, F., Martinez, G., and Senel, C. B.: Turbulence statistics of terrestrial Mars-analog and Martian dust devils, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-11239, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-11239, 2024.