arXiv subjects

Scott Guzewich

Publications and source records attributed to Scott Guzewich.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2020

The case for a multi-channel polarization sensitive LIDAR for investigation of insolation-driven ices and atmospheres

All LIDAR instruments are not the same, and advancement of LIDAR technology requires an ongoing interest and demand from the community to foster further development of the required components. The purpose of this paper is to make the community aware of the need for further technical development, and the potential payoff of investing experimental time, money and thought into the next generation of LIDARs.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2020

Terrestrial Planets Comparative Climatology (TPCC) mission concept

The authors and co-signers of the Terrestrial Planets Comparative Climatology (TPCC) mission concept white paper advocate that planetary science in the next decade would greatly benefit from comparatively studying the fundamental behavior of the atmospheres of Venus and Mars, contemporaneously and with the same instrumentation, to capture atmospheric response to the same solar forcing, and with a minimum of instrument-related variability. Thus, this white paper was created for the 2023-2032 Planetary Science Decadal Survey process. It describes the science rationale for such a mission, and a mission concept that could achieve such a mission.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2017

Penitentes as the origin of the bladed terrain of Tartarus Dorsa, Pluto

Penitentes are ablative features observed in snow and ice that, on Earth, are characterized by regular cm to tens of cm spaced bowl-shaped depressions whose edges grade into tall spires up to several meters tall (Nichols et al. 1939, Lliboutry et al. 1954, Claudin et al. 2015). While penitentes have been suggested as an explanation for anomalous radar data on Europa (Hobley et al. 2013), hitherto no penitentes have been identified conclusively on other planetary bodies. Regular ridges with spacing of 3000 m to 5000 m and a depth of $\sim500$ m with morphologies that resemble penitentes (Fig. 1) have been observed by the New Horizons spacecraft (Moore et al. 2016, Stern et al. 2015, Gladstone et al. 2016, Moore et al. 2017) in the Tartarus Dorsa (TD) region of Pluto (approximately 220-250$^\circ$ E, 0-20$^\circ$ N). Here we report simulations, based upon a recent model (Claudinet al. 2015) adapted to conditions on Pluto (Gladstone et al. 2016, Toigo et al. 2015), that reproduce both the tri-modal orientation and the spacing of these features by deepening penitentes. These penitentes deepen by of order 1 cm per orbital cycle in the present era and grow only during periods of relatively high atmospheric pressure, suggesting a formation timescale of several tens of millions of years, consistent with cratering ages and the current atmospheric loss rate of methane. This time scale, in turn, implies that the penitentes formed from initial topographic variations of no more than a few 10s of meters, consistent with Pluto's youngest terrains.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2013

"Winter is coming"

Those that do not sow care little about such mundane things as equinoxes or planting seasons, or even crop rotation for that matter. Wherever and whenever the reavers reave, the mood is always foul and the nights are never warm or pleasant. For the rest of the good folks of Westeros, however, a decent grasp of the long-term weather forecast is a necessity. Many a maester have tried to play the Game of Weather Patterns and foretell when to plant those last turnip seeds, hoping for a few more years of balmy respite. Tried and failed. For other than the somewhat vague (if not outright meaningless) omens of "Winter is Coming", their meteorological efforts have been worse than useless. To right that appalling wrong, here we attempt to explain the apparently erratic seasonal changes in the world of G.R.R.M. A natural explanation for such phenomena is the unique behavior of a circumbinary planet. Thus, by speculating that the planet under scrutiny is orbiting a pair of stars, we utilize the power of numerical three-body dynamics to predict that, unfortunately, it is not possible to predict either the length, or the severity of any coming winter. We conclude that, alas, the Maesters were right -- one can only throw their hands in the air in frustration and, defeated by non-analytic solutions, mumble "Coming winter? May be long and nasty (~850 days, T<268K) or may be short and sweet (~600 days, T~273K). Who knows..."

physics.pop-ph↗