GENERATING SYNTHETIC SATELLITE IMAGES OF MARS DUST STORMS BASED ON RADIATIVE TRANSFER MODELS, AS A FOLLOW-ON APPLICATION OF MARSWRF DUST CYCLE SIMULATIONS
Dust is a fundamental component of the Martian atmosphere; it plays a vital role in the planet\u27s climate system and atmospheric variability. For these reasons, it is considered one of the essential keys to understanding the Martian atmosphere\u27s behavior. The dust events on Mars range from local/regional dust storms that occur every Martian year to global dust storms that have only been observed, on average, once every 3-4 Martian years. The large regional and global dust storms have strong thermal and dynamic effects on the atmosphere. MarsWRF is a Mars version of the terrestrial numerical weather and climate model WRF (Weather Research and Forecasting Model) and part of the PlanetWRF models for planetary atmosphere research. This project aims to convert MarsWRF output data into synthetic satellite images of Mars dust storms of different sizes by using the radiative transfer model DISORT. The imagery is generated by passing selected variables from the MarsWRF output through the DISORT model, which is used to compute the top-of-the-atmosphere reflectance for a given band. The main results are synthetic satellite images plotted in 670 nm with a grid resolution of 2°× 2° of different dust events during one year of the MarsWRF model run. The obtained results of this project are consistent with the real cases of satellite images of Mars dust storms
