On the relationship between dust devil radii and heights

Jackson, Brian

doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2019.113523

Cited by 9 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 26 publications

(38 reference statements)

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“…DDA increases, in part, as the boundary layer deepens, which likely results in taller dust devils. Jackson (2020) suggested that taller dust devils ought to have larger dust densities, and the results here comport with that prediction.…”

Section: What Fraction Of Encountered Vortices Are True Dustsupporting

confidence: 89%

Vortices and Dust Devils as Observed by the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer Instruments on Board the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover

Jackson

2022

Planet. Sci. J.

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An important and perhaps dominant source of dust in the Martian atmosphere, dust devils play a key role in Mars’ climate. Data sets from previous landed missions have revealed dust devil activity, constrained their structures, and elucidated their dust-lifting capacities. However, each landing site and observational season exhibits unique meteorological properties that shape dust devil activity and illuminate their dependence on ambient conditions. The recent release of data from the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) instrument suite on board the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover promises a new treasure trove for dust devil studies. In this study, we sift the time series from MEDA’s Pressure Sensor (PS) and Radiative and Dust Sensors (RDS) to look for the signals of passing vortices and dust devils. We detected 309 vortex encounters over the mission’s first 89 sols. Consistent with predictions, these encounter rates exceed InSight and Curiosity’s encounter rates. The RDS time series also allows us to assess whether a passing vortex is likely to be dusty (and therefore is a true dust devil) or dustless. We find that about one quarter of vortices show signs of dust lofting, although unfavorable encounter geometries may have prevented us from detecting dust for other vortices. In addition to these results, we discuss prospects for vortex studies as additional data from Mars 2020 are processed and made available.

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Section: What Fraction Of Encountered Vortices Are True Dustsupporting

confidence: 89%

Vortices and Dust Devils as Observed by the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer Instruments on Board the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover

Jackson

2022

Planet. Sci. J.

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“…DDA increases, in part, with as the boundary layer deepens, which likely results in taller dust devils. Jackson (2020) suggested that taller dust devils ought to have larger dust densities, and the results here comport with that prediction.…”

Section: What Fraction Of Encountered Vortices Are True Dust Devils?supporting

confidence: 89%

“…Indeed, there is a dearth of vortex encounters with large ∆P 0 and large radiative excursions in Figure 7(a), which seems counter-intuitive: we might expect the most vigorous vortices to lift the most dust. Theoretical expectations (Jackson 2020) and observations of martian dust devils (Greeley et al 2006) corroborate this expectation. Instead, this dearth may arise simply from the vortex encounter geometries.…”

Section: What Fraction Of Encountered Vortices Are True Dust Devils?mentioning

confidence: 59%

Vortices and Dust Devils As Observed by the MEDA Instruments onboard Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover

Jackson

2021

Preprint

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An important and perhaps dominant source of dust in the martian atmosphere, dust devils play a key role in Mars' climate. Datasets from previous landed missions have revealed dust devil activity, constrained their structures, and elucidated their dust-lifting capacities. However, each landing site and observational season exhibits unique meteorological properties that shape dust devil activity and help illuminate their dependence on ambient conditions. The recent release of data from the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) instrument suite onboard the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover promises a new treasure-trove for dust devil studies. In this study, we sift the time-series from MEDA's Pressure Sensor (PS) and Radiative and Dust Sensors (RDS) to look for the signals of passing vortices and dust devils. We detected 309 vortex encounters over the mission's first 89 sols. Consistent with predictions, these encounter rates exceed InSight and Curiosity's encounter rates by factors of several. The RDS time-series also allows us to assess whether a passing vortex is likely to be dusty (and therefore is a true dust devil) or dustless. We find that about one-third of vortices show signs of dust-lofting, although unfavorable encounter geometries may have prevented us from detecting dust for other vortices. In addition to these results, we discuss prospects for vortex studies as additional data from Mars 2020 are processed and made available.

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“…Certainly, an increased advection speed would be expected to increase the rate of dust devil encounter since more dust devils would be advected past the camera or meteorological sensor, what has been called the "advection effect". Moreover, some non-zero winds are probably necessary to provide the vorticity requisite for dust devil formation (Jackson 2020), and, in any case, turbulent winds must accompany the convectively unstable conditions that produce dust devils. However, as discussed in Rafkin et al (2016), higher wind speeds may suppress a high near-surface lapse rate and reduce the vigor of convective mixing associated with dust devils.…”

Section: Why Didn't Insight Image Any Dust Devils?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Inferring Vortex and Dust Devil Statistics from InSight

Crevier¹,

Szurgot²,

Battin³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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The InSight mission has operated on the surface of Mars for nearly two Earth years, returning detections of the first Marsquakes. The lander also deployed a meteorological instrument package and cameras to monitor local surface activity. These instruments have detected boundary layer phenomena, including small-scale vortices. These vortices register as short-lived, negative pressure excursions and closely resemble those that could generate dust devils. Although our analysis shows InSight encountered more than 900 vortices and collected more than 1000 images of the martian surface, no active dust devils were imaged. In spite of the lack of dust devil detections, we can leverage the vortex detections and InSight's daily wind speed measurements to learn about the boundary layer processes that create dust devils. We discuss our analysis of InSight's meteorological data to assess the statistics of vortex and dust devil activity. We also infer encounter distances for the vortices and, therefrom, the maximum vortex wind speeds. Surveying the available imagery, we place upper limits on what fraction of vortices carry dust (i.e., how many are bonafide dust devils) and estimate threshold wind speeds for dust lifting. Comparing our results to detections of dust devil tracks seen in space-based observations of the InSight landing site, we can also infer thresholds and frequency of track formation by vortices. Comparing vortex encounters and parameters with advective wind speeds, we find evidence that high wind speeds at InSight may have suppressed the formation of dust devils, explaining the lack of imaged dust devils.

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On the relationship between dust devil radii and heights

Cited by 9 publications

References 26 publications

Vortices and Dust Devils as Observed by the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer Instruments on Board the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover

Vortices and Dust Devils as Observed by the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer Instruments on Board the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover

Vortices and Dust Devils As Observed by the MEDA Instruments onboard Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover

Inferring Vortex and Dust Devil Statistics from InSight

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