4. Results: dusty case up previous next
4.a. Feature of dust mixing (1)

Figure 10a: Dust mixing of the first day after the switch-on of dust injection. Results of every 10 minutes from LT = 11:39 to 18:00 are shown. (Upper panel) Mixing ratio of dust (kg/kg). Areas of the value of dust mixing ratio larger than 1.0×10-8 kg/kg are colored. (Lower panel) Vertical wind velocity. Contour interval is 5 msec-1.


Figure 10a (upper panel) shows dust mixing of the first day after the switch-on of dust injection. Dust is well mixed within two to three hours by the convective plumes. Immediately after the switch-on of dust injection, large dust mixing ratio is observed within the ascending regions, especially convective plumes. At around LT=14:00, about two hours after the switch-on, dust spreads over the whole of the convection layer. At LT=17:00, the distribution of dust below about 10 km height becomes almost uniform horizontally and vertically.

During the development stage of dust mixing, there may be an effect of differential radiative heating between the ascending regions where dust mixing ratio is large and other regions where that is small. However, the differential heating does not seem to have large effects on the circulation patterns of convection. Similar to the results of the dust-free case (Figure 4 (upper right panel)), the aspect ratio of convective cell remains about 2 to 1, and the width of updraft region is almost equal to that of downdraft (Figure 10a (lower panel)). It might be observed that, owing to the dust absorption of solar radiation, the intensity of downdraft be reduced a little compared to that of updraft. However, the amount of decrease, if any, is only within the range which requires some detailed analyses to show its statistical significancy. The results indicate that, before radiative heat contrast affects the circulation pattern of convection, dust spreads over the whole convection layer and consequently its effect is weakened. Dust can be regarded as a passive tracer during the stage of dust injection and mixing.


A numerical simulation of thermal convection in the Martian lower atmosphere.
Odaka, Nakajima, Ishiwatari, Hayashi,   Nagare Multimedia 2001
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