Comparative Analysis of Numerical Simulation by the GoMars Model and In-situ Data

The most recent Mars exploration missions have deployed two rovers to Utopia Planitia: the Zhurong rover from China’s Tianwen-1 mission and NASA’s Perseverance rover from the Mars 2020 mission. Therefore, there are one operating mars lander (Insight) and three rovers (Curiosity, Perseverance, Zhurong) during Mars Year 35-36 which conducted in-situ meteorological measurements, providing a valuable dataset for understanding the Martian atmosphere. This study utilizes the meteorological data collected by these lander and rovers to validate the numerical simulation of the Martian General Circulation Model (MGCM), specifically GoMars (Global Open Planetary Atmospheric Model for Mars) model, to explore the consistency and discrepancies between the observed and simulated data on annual and diurnal variations. The results demonstrate a high degree of agreement between the GoMars simulations and observational data, with both effectively capturing the regional atmospheric characteristics. However, subtle differences were noticed, there is a systematic bias between the model and observation in the annual cycle of wind speeds and surface pressure. To further investigate the factors influencing the alignment between simulations and observations, the GoMars model results at different spatial resolutions are compared with observational data. The analysis reveals that higher spatial resolution contributes to reducing discrepancies between the simulated and observed atmospheric parameters. This finding underscores the importance of optimizing model resolution in capturing local atmospheric dynamics and highlights its potential to enhance the accuracy of MGCM. These insights are critical for refining existing MGCM, enhancing their predictive capabilities for regional atmospheric phenomena on Mars. Furthermore, developing the high-resolution MGCM can provide accurate meteorological data that support the future Mars exploration missions.