Dust and tides in the Martian atmosphere

Recent limb-scanning observations of the Martian atmosphere by the Mars Climate Sounder (MCS) and Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) have provided new insights on the vertical distribution of dust, atmospheric thermal tides and interactions between those two features.;Using MCS observations, I analyze atmospheric thermal tides and stationary planetary waves in the Martian atmosphere in Chapter 2. I make the first confident detection of the wavenumber 3 diurnal Kelvin wave. In Chapter 3, I analyze TES limb-scanning observations that provide a robust climatology of two high altitude dust layers and constrain their source mechanism/s. This represents the initial discovery of the uppermost layer at 45-65 km altitude. Finally in Chapter 4, using the MarsWRF general circulation model, I modify the dust distribution to mimic the empirical TES vertical dust profile and examine the impact of these dust layers on the Martian. I find the presence of high altitude dust layers results in an atmospheric thermal structure that more closely matches TES observations, relative to simulations without such layers, and fundamentally alters many key features of the atmosphere including the wind field, meridional circulation and polar warming. The presence of high altitude dust layers weakens the migrating diurnal tide through destructive interference, enhances the migrating semidiurnal tide by expanding the altitude range of thermotidal forcing and has a limited impact on the diurnal Kelvin waves.