Global Dust Storms on Mars: Insights from Observation, Theory, and Comparative Planetology

Global Dust Storms on Mars: Insights from Observation, Theory, and Comparative Planetology

Abstract:

Mars global dust storms are among the most dramatic meteorological events in the solar system. Lofted dust envelops the entire planet in a thick veil that obscures surface features for weeks to months. Despite decades of remote and in situ observations, the mechanisms that drive the growth of seasonal local and regional storms to global scale remain poorly understood, and prediction is still difficult if not impossible. This seminar reviews the current theoretical framework for storm initiation and growth, with emphasis on less studied sources of interannual variability at small scales, including meteoric smoke, upper-atmosphere cloud forcing, and surface salt duricrusts. These topics are informed by well-established systems on Earth and applied to Mars, permitting the development of new frameworks grounded in empirical study. Looking forward, dust storm research holds promise for advancing understanding of paleoMars climate evolution and for extending comparative atmospheric studies to exoplanetary systems.