arXiv subjects

Mark I. Richardson

Publications and source records attributed to Mark I. Richardson.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Atmospheric dynamics of IR-active particles released from Mars' surface

Surface release of radiatively active particles, with high infrared- (IR-)to-visible extinction ratios, has been proposed as a method of warming Mars. However, to warm Mars using aerosols, particles released locally must disperse globally. Here we provide an initial reference study in a plume tracking, dry Martian atmospheric model to address this question. The winds that transport aerosols respond to the aerosol's IR forcing, implying strong radiative-dynamical feedbacks (RDF). We investigate RDF from surface release of two particle compositions: carbon (graphene) and metal (Al). Self-lofting helps particles rise and spread locally and regionally, and the Hadley cell strengthens under warming, aiding latitudinal mixing. Within our model, Mars RDF enable engineered-aerosol warming. Warming is slightly greater for three-dimensional vs. 1D-models and also depends on spectral resolution of radiative transfer. We assess implications for Mars warming. Many open atmospheric science questions remain, including the role of agglomeration, dry-deposition rate uncertainty, and modeling water cycle feedbacks.

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arXiv2026

Modelling the long-term impacts of artificial warming on the Martian water cycle and surface ice distribution

Recent papers by Ansari et al. (2024, Science Advances 10, eadn4650) and Richardson et al. (2025, arXiv eprint 2504.01455) have suggested that global warming of the Martian surface ('terraforming') by 35 K to sustain local habitats above the melting point of water could be achieved through the injection of engineered aerosols into the Martian atmosphere. Using the MarsWRF 3D Global Climate Model, we investigate how artificial warming of Mars through engineered aerosol release would affect the planetary water cycle and the distribution of the major surface ice reservoirs. Within our model framework, every 20 K of global warming induces a tenfold increase in atmospheric water vapour content due to sublimation of H2O ice from the North Polar Cap. This increases the potency of cloud radiative feedbacks which induces nighttime warming (~5-10 K) at low latitudes, but daytime cooling (up to 40 K) in the winter midlatitudes. Water is transferred from the edge of the North Polar Cap to the South Polar Cap and there is minor destabilisation of shallow northern midlatitude subsurface ice. As a result, seasonal sublimation of H2O ice from the South Pole has an increased impact on the global water cycle. These changes persist on Mars at least decades after loading of the atmosphere with engineered aerosols ceases. Our model is limited by the gaps in our knowledge of present-day Martian weather and climate, and of the microphysics and radiative properties of candidate warming agents. Much more data is therefore needed before warming Mars could become feasible.

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arXiv2022

Unstructured Grid Dynamical Modeling of Planetary Atmospheres using planetMPAS: The Influence of the Rigid Lid, Computational Efficiency, and Examples of Martian and Jovian Application

We present a new planetary global circulation model, planetMPAS, based on the state-of-the-art NCAR MPAS General Circulation Model. Taking advantage of the cross compatibility between WRF and MPAS, planetMPAS includes most of the planetWRF physics parameterization schemes for terrestrial planets such as Mars and Titan. PlanetMPAS also includes a set of physics that represents radiative transfer, dry convection, moist convection and its associated microphysics for the Jovian atmosphere. We demonstrate that, despite the rigid-lid approximation, planetMPAS is suitable to simulate the climate systems in Martian and Jovian atmospheres with potential application to slow-rotating planets such as Titan. Simulations using planetMPAS show that the new model can reproduce many aspects of the observed features on Mars and Jupiter, such as the seasonal CO2 cycle, polar argon enrichment, zonal mean temperature, and qualitative dust opacity on Mars, as well as the equatorial superrotation and banded zonal wind patterns on Jupiter.

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arXiv2022

Changing spatial distribution of water flow charts major change in Mars' greenhouse effect

Early Mars had rivers, but the cause of Mars' wet-to-dry transition remains unknown. Past climate on Mars can be probed using the spatial distribution of climate-sensitive landforms. We analyzed global databases of water-worked landforms and identified changes in the spatial distribution of rivers over time. These changes are simply explained by comparison to a simplified meltwater model driven by an ensemble of global climate model simulations, as the result of $\gtrsim$10 K global cooling, from global average surface temperature (T) $\ge$ 268 K to T $\sim$ 258 K, due to a weaker greenhouse effect. In other words, river-forming climates on Early Mars were warm and wet first, and cold and wet later. Surprisingly, analysis of the greenhouse effect within our ensemble of global climate model simulations suggests that this shift was primarily driven by waning non-CO2 radiative forcing, and not changes in CO2 radiative forcing.

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arXiv2016

Detection and Quantification of Volatiles at Mars using a multispectral LIDAR

We present a concept for using a polarization sensitive multispectral lidar to map the seasonal distribution and exchange of volatiles among the reservoirs of the Martian surface and atmosphere. The LIDAR instrument will be a multi-wavelength, altitude-resolved, active near-infrared (NIR, with 10 bands around 1.6 microns) instrument to measure the reflected intensity and polarization of backscattered radiation from planetary surfaces and atmospheres. The proposed instrument would be ideally suited for a mission to Mars to comprehensively investigate the nature and seasonal distributions of volatiles and aerosols. The investigation would include the abundance of atmospheric dust and condensed volatiles, surface and cloud/aerosol grain sizes and shapes, ice and dust particle microphysics and also variations in atmospheric chemistry during multiple overflight local times throughout polar night and day. Such an instrument would be ideal for mapping and detection of recently detected CO2 frost phenomena and H2O and CO2 precipitation events in the polar regions of Mars. Herein we discuss the applicability of this instrument to detect and map sublimation/deposition 'mode flips' recently discovered by Brown et al. (2016) using the CRISM passive infrared sensor on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

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