Oscar Martínez-Alvarado

Teaching

Planet-encircling dust storms on Mars

Alex Brand, Sue Gray (co-supervisor)


The atmospheres on every planet have their own peculiarities. On Mars, one of the most important features is the presence of dust which, from time to time, outbursts in dust storms of such a large scale that can cover the whole planet.

The objective of this project will be to find out how atmospheric thermal tides (diurnal and semi-diurnal motions following the sun) and baroclinic waves are modified when a planet-encircling dust storm starts on Mars. This will be achieved by comparing the structure of thermal tides during a planet-encircling dust storm and during an average Martian year. The data to be analysed will be the output of the state-of-the-art UK Mars general circulation model. Matlab and Fortran code will be provided to carry out the analysis, although the possibility of writing new pieces of code is also open.

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