Convective Boundary Layer at Jezero Crater, Mars, during Three Martian Years

The Mars 2020 Perseverance rover landed at Jezero crater, Mars, on February 18, 2021. Since then, it has driven about 44 km through different terrains, including the Jezero crater’s floor and delta. The rover has also climbed about 750 m to escape from the crater. The MEDA meteorological instrument on Perseverance [1-2] allows investigating the planetary boundary layer (PBL) at different sites. This work focuses on the daytime PBL, or convective boundary layer (CBL). Characterizing the daytime convective turbulence is relevant, for example, to constrain dust lifting processes, improve models, and operate aerial vehicles. Since local environmental conditions greatly influence the development of the CBL [e.g. 3], we investigate potential variations in the CBL during three Martian Years of meteorological records at different sites.

The CBL depth is a relevant proxy of the intensity of the convective turbulence, as previous works have shown [4-5]. Thermal profiles retrieved from orbit have constrained the CBL depth at different locations on Mars [6-7]. From Mars’ surface, using the periodicity of the daytime pressure oscillations, related to convective cells, have been suggested to estimate the CBL depth [5, 8]. Similarly, we assess the CBL depth at Jezero through spectral and time-frequency analyses of daytime pressure data. We compare our results with atmospheric simulations and orbital observations, and comment on potential changes in seasonal and interannual timescales.

Other relevant magnitudes to investigate the intensity of the convective turbulence include temperature fluctuations and thermal gradients [9-10], wind speed and its fluctuations [11-12], and convective vortices [13]. We investigate the convective turbulence during three Martian Years of MEDA observations, with special attention to variations in CBL processes related to changes in Perseverance’s elevation. We include recently derived wind data up to mission sol 1738. These data are essential for estimating CBL depths and characterizing convective turbulence at different local times. Overall, MEDA allows us to characterize multiple CBL processes at Jezero, as well as to assess the best local time to fly aerial vehicles.

References

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the operations and hardware teams from the Mars 2020 project. This project is carried out as part of the NASA Mars exploration program in the US. A.M. is a postdoctoral researcher funded by Programa Posdoctoral de Perfeccionamiento de Personal Doctor del Gobierno Vasco. C.P. acknowledges the support of the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR). A.M., R.H., A.S.L. and A.S. are supported by grant PID2023-149055NB-C31 funded by MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/ and FEDER, UE. GM acknowledges funding from grant PID2024-161247OB-C31 funded by MICIU/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033 and by ERDF/EU.