The Planetary Environmental and Astrobiological Research Laboratory (PEARL) team from School of Atmospheric Sciences discovered the dust tides phenomenon on Mars

Source: School of Atmospheric Sciences
Written by: Zhaopeng Wu
Edited by: Xu Jia, Wang Dongmei

Mars, one of the most important terrestrial planets, shares many similarities with Earth. The comparative study of the climate between the two planets is of great significance for us to understand the evolution of the Earth's atmosphere. The climate change on Mars is directly related to the existence of water, which makes the study of the Martian atmosphere a key part in the exploration of extraterrestrial life and habitability.

As a desert planet, Mars is full of dust particles both on the ground and in the atmosphere. The dust cycle is as an extremely important component of the climate system to Mars, as the water cycle to Earth. Recent satellite observations have found that important volatiles in the Martian atmosphere, such as H2O and HDO, can be rapidly lifted from the troposphere to a hundred of kilometers just in a few days by deep convection during major dust storms. These new findings suggest that the short-period dynamics in the Martian atmosphere may be particularly important. However, previous studies were mostly focused on climatology of Martian airborne dust, while little is known about short-period processes dominated by extreme weather, such as the frequently-occurred dust storms on Mars.

Recently, Dr. Zhaopeng Wu and Dr. Jing Li, postdoctoral fellows of the Planetary Environmental and Astrobiological Research Laboratory (PEARL, led by Prof. Jun Cui), School of Atmospheric Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, in collaboration with Prof. Tao Li from University of Science and Technology of China and Prof. Xi Zhang from University of California, Santa Cruz, USA, published an academic paper entitled "Dust Tides and Rapid Meridional Motions in the Martian Atmosphere During Major Dust Storms" in Nature Communications, which reveals the commonly existed dust tide phenomenon during major dust storms on Mars and proposes a new hypothesis for the rapid transport of water vapor during global dust storms.