Martian dust storm impact on atmospheric H2O and D/H observed by ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter

Ann Carine Vandaele; Oleg Korablev; Frank Daerden; Shohei Aoki; Ian R. Thomas; Francesca Altieri; Miguel López-Valverde; Geronimo Villanueva; Giuliano Liuzzi; Michael D. Smith; Justin T. Erwin; Loïc Trompet; Anna A. Fedorova; Franck Montmessin; A Trokhimovskiy; D.A. Belyaev; N.I.  Ignatiev; M.  Luginin; Kevin S. Olsen; Lucio Baggio; Juan Alday; Jean Loup Bertaux; Daria Betsis; David Bolsée; R. Todd Clancy; Edward Cloutis; Cédric Depiesse; Bernd Funke; Maia Garcia-Comas; J.-C.  Gérard; Marco Giuranna; Francisco Gonzalez-Galindo; A.V.  Grigoriev; Y.S.  Ivanov; Jacek Kaminski; Ozgur Karatekin; F Lefevre; Stephen Lewis; Manuel López-Puertas; Arnaud Mahieux; I.  Maslov; Jon Mason; Michael J. Mumma; Lori Neary; Eddy Neefs; A.  Patrakeev; D.  Patsaev; Roland Young; Javier Martin-Torres; Maria Paz Zorzano; NOMAD Science Team; ACS Science Team

doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1097-3

Martian dust storm impact on atmospheric H₂O and D/H observed by ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter

Ann Carine Vandaele^*, Oleg Korablev, Frank Daerden, Shohei Aoki, Ian R. Thomas, Francesca Altieri, Miguel López-Valverde, Geronimo Villanueva, Giuliano Liuzzi, Michael D. Smith, Justin T. Erwin, Loïc Trompet, Anna A. Fedorova, Franck Montmessin, A Trokhimovskiy, D.A. Belyaev, N.I. Ignatiev, M. Luginin, Kevin S. Olsen, Lucio BaggioJuan Alday, Jean Loup Bertaux, Daria Betsis, David Bolsée, R. Todd Clancy, Edward Cloutis, Cédric Depiesse, Bernd Funke, Maia Garcia-Comas, J.-C. Gérard, Marco Giuranna, Francisco Gonzalez-Galindo, A.V. Grigoriev, Y.S. Ivanov, Jacek Kaminski, Ozgur Karatekin, F Lefevre, Stephen Lewis, Manuel López-Puertas, Arnaud Mahieux, I. Maslov, Jon Mason, Michael J. Mumma, Lori Neary, Eddy Neefs, A. Patrakeev, D. Patsaev, Roland Young, Javier Martin-Torres, Maria Paz Zorzano, NOMAD Science Team, ACS Science Team

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

107 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Global dust storms on Mars are rare^1,2 but can affect the Martian atmosphere for several months. They can cause changes in atmospheric dynamics and inflation of the atmosphere³, primarily owing to solar heating of the dust³. In turn, changes in atmospheric dynamics can affect the distribution of atmospheric water vapour, with potential implications for the atmospheric photochemistry and climate on Mars⁴. Recent observations of the water vapour abundance in the Martian atmosphere during dust storm conditions revealed a high-altitude increase in atmospheric water vapour that was more pronounced at high northern latitudes^5,6, as well as a decrease in the water column at low latitudes^7,8. Here we present concurrent, high-resolution measurements of dust, water and semiheavy water (HDO) at the onset of a global dust storm, obtained by the NOMAD and ACS instruments onboard the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. We report the vertical distribution of the HDO/H₂O ratio (D/H) from the planetary boundary layer up to an altitude of 80 kilometres. Our findings suggest that before the onset of the dust storm, HDO abundances were reduced to levels below detectability at altitudes above 40 kilometres. This decrease in HDO coincided with the presence of water-ice clouds. During the storm, an increase in the abundance of H₂O and HDO was observed at altitudes between 40 and 80 kilometres. We propose that these increased abundances may be the result of warmer temperatures during the dust storm causing stronger atmospheric circulation and preventing ice cloud formation, which may confine water vapour to lower altitudes through gravitational fall and subsequent sublimation of ice crystals³. The observed changes in H₂O and HDO abundance occurred within a few days during the development of the dust storm, suggesting a fast impact of dust storms on the Martian atmosphere.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	521-525
Number of pages	5
Journal	Nature
Volume	568
Issue number	7753
Early online date	10 Apr 2019
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1097-3
Publication status	Published - 25 Apr 2019

Bibliographical note

ExoMars is a space mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) and Roscosmos. The NOMAD experiment is led by the Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (IASB-BIRA), assisted by Co-Principal Investigator teams from Spain (IAA-CSIC), Italy (INAF-IAPS) and the UK (Open University). This project acknowledges funding by the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO), with financial and contractual coordination by the ESA Prodex Office (PEA 4000103401, 4000121493); by the Spanish MICINN through its Plan Nacional and by European funds under grants ESP2015-65064-C2-1-P and ESP2017-87143-R (MINECO/FEDER); by the UK Space Agency through grants ST/R005761/1, ST/P001262/1, ST/R001405/1, ST/S00145X/1, ST/R001367/1, ST/P001572/1 and ST/R001502/1; and the Italian Space Agency through grant 2018-2-HH.0. The IAA/CSIC team acknowledges financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the ‘Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa’ award for the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (SEV-2017-0709). This work was supported by the Belgian Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique – FNRS under grant number 30442502 (ET_HOME). The ACS experiment is led by IKI, Space Research Institute in Moscow, assisted by LATMOS in France. The project acknowledges funding by Roscosmos and CNES. The science operations of ACS are funded by Roscosmos and ESA. IKI affiliates acknowledge funding under grant number 14.W03.31.0017 and contract number 0120.0 602993 (0028-2014-0004) of the Russian government. We are grateful to all ESA ESOC, ESAC and IKI Science Operations Center personnel, whose efforts made the success of TGO possible.

Data Availability Statement

The datasets generated by the NOMAD and ACS instruments and analysed in this study will be available in the ESA PSA repository, https://archives.esac.esa.int/psa, after the proprietary period. The datasets used directly in this study, including the data used for the figures, are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Code availability
The codes used to calculate the dust/aerosol optical depths shown in Fig. 1 are available upon request from the corresponding author. The code used to inverse the NOMAD and ACS spectra and derive density profiles has been favourably compared to the PSG tool, which can be accessed at https://psg.gsfc.nasa.gov/ and which is part of this study. A version of the retrieval code is available at https://psg.gsfc.nasa.gov/helpatm.php#retrieval.

Keywords

Martian dust
H2O
D/H. Exomars Trace Gas Orbiter
Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology
Astronomi, astrofysik och kosmologi

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

10.1038/s41586-019-1097-3Licence: Unspecified

Cite this

Vandaele, A. C., Korablev, O., Daerden, F., Aoki, S., Thomas, I. R., Altieri, F., López-Valverde, M., Villanueva, G., Liuzzi, G., Smith, M. D., Erwin, J. T., Trompet, L., Fedorova, A. A., Montmessin, F., Trokhimovskiy, A., Belyaev, D. A., Ignatiev, N. I., Luginin, M., Olsen, K. S., ... ACS Science Team (2019). Martian dust storm impact on atmospheric H₂O and D/H observed by ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. Nature, 568(7753), 521-525. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1097-3

Vandaele, AC, Korablev, O, Daerden, F, Aoki, S, Thomas, IR, Altieri, F, López-Valverde, M, Villanueva, G, Liuzzi, G, Smith, MD, Erwin, JT, Trompet, L, Fedorova, AA, Montmessin, F, Trokhimovskiy, A, Belyaev, DA, Ignatiev, NI, Luginin, M, Olsen, KS, Baggio, L, Alday, J, Bertaux, JL, Betsis, D, Bolsée, D, Clancy, RT, Cloutis, E, Depiesse, C, Funke, B, Garcia-Comas, M, Gérard, J-C, Giuranna, M, Gonzalez-Galindo, F, Grigoriev, AV, Ivanov, YS, Kaminski, J, Karatekin, O, Lefevre, F, Lewis, S, López-Puertas, M, Mahieux, A, Maslov, I, Mason, J, Mumma, MJ, Neary, L, Neefs, E, Patrakeev, A, Patsaev, D, Young, R , Martin-Torres, J, Zorzano, MP, NOMAD Science Team & ACS Science Team 2019, 'Martian dust storm impact on atmospheric H₂O and D/H observed by ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter', Nature, vol. 568, no. 7753, pp. 521-525. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1097-3

@article{b76197fc5fb14e559f30e66a6d4b0904,

title = "Martian dust storm impact on atmospheric H2O and D/H observed by ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter",

abstract = "Global dust storms on Mars are rare1,2 but can affect the Martian atmosphere for several months. They can cause changes in atmospheric dynamics and inflation of the atmosphere3, primarily owing to solar heating of the dust3. In turn, changes in atmospheric dynamics can affect the distribution of atmospheric water vapour, with potential implications for the atmospheric photochemistry and climate on Mars4. Recent observations of the water vapour abundance in the Martian atmosphere during dust storm conditions revealed a high-altitude increase in atmospheric water vapour that was more pronounced at high northern latitudes5,6, as well as a decrease in the water column at low latitudes7,8. Here we present concurrent, high-resolution measurements of dust, water and semiheavy water (HDO) at the onset of a global dust storm, obtained by the NOMAD and ACS instruments onboard the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. We report the vertical distribution of the HDO/H2O ratio (D/H) from the planetary boundary layer up to an altitude of 80 kilometres. Our findings suggest that before the onset of the dust storm, HDO abundances were reduced to levels below detectability at altitudes above 40 kilometres. This decrease in HDO coincided with the presence of water-ice clouds. During the storm, an increase in the abundance of H2O and HDO was observed at altitudes between 40 and 80 kilometres. We propose that these increased abundances may be the result of warmer temperatures during the dust storm causing stronger atmospheric circulation and preventing ice cloud formation, which may confine water vapour to lower altitudes through gravitational fall and subsequent sublimation of ice crystals3. The observed changes in H2O and HDO abundance occurred within a few days during the development of the dust storm, suggesting a fast impact of dust storms on the Martian atmosphere. ",

keywords = "Martian dust, H2O, D/H. Exomars Trace Gas Orbiter, Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology, Astronomi, astrofysik och kosmologi",

author = "Vandaele, {Ann Carine} and Oleg Korablev and Frank Daerden and Shohei Aoki and Thomas, {Ian R.} and Francesca Altieri and Miguel L{\'o}pez-Valverde and Geronimo Villanueva and Giuliano Liuzzi and Smith, {Michael D.} and Erwin, {Justin T.} and Lo{\"i}c Trompet and Fedorova, {Anna A.} and Franck Montmessin and A Trokhimovskiy and D.A. Belyaev and N.I. Ignatiev and M. Luginin and Olsen, {Kevin S.} and Lucio Baggio and Juan Alday and Bertaux, {Jean Loup} and Daria Betsis and David Bols{\'e}e and Clancy, {R. Todd} and Edward Cloutis and C{\'e}dric Depiesse and Bernd Funke and Maia Garcia-Comas and J.-C. G{\'e}rard and Marco Giuranna and Francisco Gonzalez-Galindo and A.V. Grigoriev and Y.S. Ivanov and Jacek Kaminski and Ozgur Karatekin and F Lefevre and Stephen Lewis and Manuel L{\'o}pez-Puertas and Arnaud Mahieux and I. Maslov and Jon Mason and Mumma, {Michael J.} and Lori Neary and Eddy Neefs and A. Patrakeev and D. Patsaev and Roland Young and Javier Martin-Torres and Zorzano, {Maria Paz} and {NOMAD Science Team} and {ACS Science Team}",

note = "ExoMars is a space mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) and Roscosmos. The NOMAD experiment is led by the Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (IASB-BIRA), assisted by Co-Principal Investigator teams from Spain (IAA-CSIC), Italy (INAF-IAPS) and the UK (Open University). This project acknowledges funding by the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO), with financial and contractual coordination by the ESA Prodex Office (PEA 4000103401, 4000121493); by the Spanish MICINN through its Plan Nacional and by European funds under grants ESP2015-65064-C2-1-P and ESP2017-87143-R (MINECO/FEDER); by the UK Space Agency through grants ST/R005761/1, ST/P001262/1, ST/R001405/1, ST/S00145X/1, ST/R001367/1, ST/P001572/1 and ST/R001502/1; and the Italian Space Agency through grant 2018-2-HH.0. The IAA/CSIC team acknowledges financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the {\textquoteleft}Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa{\textquoteright} award for the Instituto de Astrof{\'i}sica de Andaluc{\'i}a (SEV-2017-0709). This work was supported by the Belgian Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique – FNRS under grant number 30442502 (ET_HOME). The ACS experiment is led by IKI, Space Research Institute in Moscow, assisted by LATMOS in France. The project acknowledges funding by Roscosmos and CNES. The science operations of ACS are funded by Roscosmos and ESA. IKI affiliates acknowledge funding under grant number 14.W03.31.0017 and contract number 0120.0 602993 (0028-2014-0004) of the Russian government. We are grateful to all ESA ESOC, ESAC and IKI Science Operations Center personnel, whose efforts made the success of TGO possible.",

year = "2019",

month = apr,

day = "25",

doi = "10.1038/s41586-019-1097-3",

language = "English",

volume = "568",

pages = "521--525",

journal = "Nature",

issn = "0028-0836",

publisher = "Nature Publishing Group",

number = "7753",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Martian dust storm impact on atmospheric H2O and D/H observed by ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter

AU - Vandaele, Ann Carine

AU - Korablev, Oleg

AU - Daerden, Frank

AU - Aoki, Shohei

AU - Thomas, Ian R.

AU - Altieri, Francesca

AU - López-Valverde, Miguel

AU - Villanueva, Geronimo

AU - Liuzzi, Giuliano

AU - Smith, Michael D.

AU - Erwin, Justin T.

AU - Trompet, Loïc

AU - Fedorova, Anna A.

AU - Montmessin, Franck

AU - Trokhimovskiy, A

AU - Belyaev, D.A.

AU - Ignatiev, N.I.

AU - Luginin, M.

AU - Olsen, Kevin S.

AU - Baggio, Lucio

AU - Alday, Juan

AU - Bertaux, Jean Loup

AU - Betsis, Daria

AU - Bolsée, David

AU - Clancy, R. Todd

AU - Cloutis, Edward

AU - Depiesse, Cédric

AU - Funke, Bernd

AU - Garcia-Comas, Maia

AU - Gérard, J.-C.

AU - Giuranna, Marco

AU - Gonzalez-Galindo, Francisco

AU - Grigoriev, A.V.

AU - Ivanov, Y.S.

AU - Kaminski, Jacek

AU - Karatekin, Ozgur

AU - Lefevre, F

AU - Lewis, Stephen

AU - López-Puertas, Manuel

AU - Mahieux, Arnaud

AU - Maslov, I.

AU - Mason, Jon

AU - Mumma, Michael J.

AU - Neary, Lori

AU - Neefs, Eddy

AU - Patrakeev, A.

AU - Patsaev, D.

AU - Young, Roland

AU - Martin-Torres, Javier

AU - Zorzano, Maria Paz

AU - NOMAD Science Team

AU - ACS Science Team

N1 - ExoMars is a space mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) and Roscosmos. The NOMAD experiment is led by the Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (IASB-BIRA), assisted by Co-Principal Investigator teams from Spain (IAA-CSIC), Italy (INAF-IAPS) and the UK (Open University). This project acknowledges funding by the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO), with financial and contractual coordination by the ESA Prodex Office (PEA 4000103401, 4000121493); by the Spanish MICINN through its Plan Nacional and by European funds under grants ESP2015-65064-C2-1-P and ESP2017-87143-R (MINECO/FEDER); by the UK Space Agency through grants ST/R005761/1, ST/P001262/1, ST/R001405/1, ST/S00145X/1, ST/R001367/1, ST/P001572/1 and ST/R001502/1; and the Italian Space Agency through grant 2018-2-HH.0. The IAA/CSIC team acknowledges financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the ‘Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa’ award for the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (SEV-2017-0709). This work was supported by the Belgian Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique – FNRS under grant number 30442502 (ET_HOME). The ACS experiment is led by IKI, Space Research Institute in Moscow, assisted by LATMOS in France. The project acknowledges funding by Roscosmos and CNES. The science operations of ACS are funded by Roscosmos and ESA. IKI affiliates acknowledge funding under grant number 14.W03.31.0017 and contract number 0120.0 602993 (0028-2014-0004) of the Russian government. We are grateful to all ESA ESOC, ESAC and IKI Science Operations Center personnel, whose efforts made the success of TGO possible.

PY - 2019/4/25

Y1 - 2019/4/25

N2 - Global dust storms on Mars are rare1,2 but can affect the Martian atmosphere for several months. They can cause changes in atmospheric dynamics and inflation of the atmosphere3, primarily owing to solar heating of the dust3. In turn, changes in atmospheric dynamics can affect the distribution of atmospheric water vapour, with potential implications for the atmospheric photochemistry and climate on Mars4. Recent observations of the water vapour abundance in the Martian atmosphere during dust storm conditions revealed a high-altitude increase in atmospheric water vapour that was more pronounced at high northern latitudes5,6, as well as a decrease in the water column at low latitudes7,8. Here we present concurrent, high-resolution measurements of dust, water and semiheavy water (HDO) at the onset of a global dust storm, obtained by the NOMAD and ACS instruments onboard the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. We report the vertical distribution of the HDO/H2O ratio (D/H) from the planetary boundary layer up to an altitude of 80 kilometres. Our findings suggest that before the onset of the dust storm, HDO abundances were reduced to levels below detectability at altitudes above 40 kilometres. This decrease in HDO coincided with the presence of water-ice clouds. During the storm, an increase in the abundance of H2O and HDO was observed at altitudes between 40 and 80 kilometres. We propose that these increased abundances may be the result of warmer temperatures during the dust storm causing stronger atmospheric circulation and preventing ice cloud formation, which may confine water vapour to lower altitudes through gravitational fall and subsequent sublimation of ice crystals3. The observed changes in H2O and HDO abundance occurred within a few days during the development of the dust storm, suggesting a fast impact of dust storms on the Martian atmosphere.

AB - Global dust storms on Mars are rare1,2 but can affect the Martian atmosphere for several months. They can cause changes in atmospheric dynamics and inflation of the atmosphere3, primarily owing to solar heating of the dust3. In turn, changes in atmospheric dynamics can affect the distribution of atmospheric water vapour, with potential implications for the atmospheric photochemistry and climate on Mars4. Recent observations of the water vapour abundance in the Martian atmosphere during dust storm conditions revealed a high-altitude increase in atmospheric water vapour that was more pronounced at high northern latitudes5,6, as well as a decrease in the water column at low latitudes7,8. Here we present concurrent, high-resolution measurements of dust, water and semiheavy water (HDO) at the onset of a global dust storm, obtained by the NOMAD and ACS instruments onboard the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. We report the vertical distribution of the HDO/H2O ratio (D/H) from the planetary boundary layer up to an altitude of 80 kilometres. Our findings suggest that before the onset of the dust storm, HDO abundances were reduced to levels below detectability at altitudes above 40 kilometres. This decrease in HDO coincided with the presence of water-ice clouds. During the storm, an increase in the abundance of H2O and HDO was observed at altitudes between 40 and 80 kilometres. We propose that these increased abundances may be the result of warmer temperatures during the dust storm causing stronger atmospheric circulation and preventing ice cloud formation, which may confine water vapour to lower altitudes through gravitational fall and subsequent sublimation of ice crystals3. The observed changes in H2O and HDO abundance occurred within a few days during the development of the dust storm, suggesting a fast impact of dust storms on the Martian atmosphere.

KW - Martian dust

KW - H2O

KW - D/H. Exomars Trace Gas Orbiter

KW - Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology

KW - Astronomi, astrofysik och kosmologi

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-85064267043&partnerID=MN8TOARS

UR - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1163-x

U2 - 10.1038/s41586-019-1097-3

DO - 10.1038/s41586-019-1097-3

M3 - Article

C2 - 30996351

SN - 0028-0836

VL - 568

SP - 521

EP - 525

JO - Nature

JF - Nature

IS - 7753

ER -