Supercomputer Simulation of Seasonal Changes in Martian Clouds, Dust and Ice

This video is a simulation of the climate on Mars spanning one year, from spring through winter in the northern hemisphere. It shows the annual cycle of three important components of the Martian climate: water-ice clouds (gray), dust (yellow) and frozen carbon dioxide on the surface (white). As the north pole’s carbon dioxide ice cap shrinks, its southern counterpart grows large. Carbon dioxide gas makes up 95% of Mars’ atmosphere and a considerable portion of it freezes out onto the surface as the poles reach their coldest point. As fall arrives in the simulation, a dust storm forms at the north pole and soon encircles the entire planet, dying down over the course of the winter. The simulation was run on the NASA Advanced Supercomputing facility’s Pleiades supercomputer using data produced by the Mars Climate Modeling Center, both at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. The MCMC’s work assists NASA in planning missions to Mars and helps us understand our solar system better by answer