Surface Pressure Response to Elevated Tidal Heating Sources: Comparison of Earth and Mars

Abstract

Modern atmospheric tidal theory has shown that the dominance of the terrestrial semidiurnal surface pressure oscillation, relative to its diurnal counterpart, is the result of the elevated heating source generated by solar heating of stratospheric ozone. Observations of the daily surface pressure variation at the Viking Lander 1 site on Mars reveal a similar predominance of the semidiurnal surface pressure oscilliation only during the onset of Martian great dust storm. Application of a classical, analytic tidal model to the Viking Leader 1 data indicates that elevating the effective heat source due to solar heating of airborne dust by a few kilometers during the onset of a Martian great dust storm can account for the observed semidiurnal surface pressure variation.