The Martian Climate Revisited: Atmosphere and Environment of a Desert Planet [Hardcover]

The atmosphere and climate of Mars is a crucial factor, both for understanding the planet's past and appreciating the possibilities of its future. Given the high level of current interest in Mars, and the major advances afforded by recent space exploration, this book seeks to examine and review our knowledge and understanding of the meteorology and climate of Mars in its present state. This is based not only upon direct observations, but also on the newer techniques of modelling: numerical simulation and data assimilation. This authoritative discussion of Mars' atmosphere and climate gives a balanced review of some of the hottest issues concerning Mars' environments, its present and past climate and potential to support life, and its possible future following manned exploration.An Introduction to Mars.- Mars Climate Models.- Mars Global-Scale Atmospheric Structure.- Topographical Influences on the Atmospheric Circulation.- Diurnal Phenomena.- Transient Weather Systems.- Dust-Storms, Devils and Transport.- Water, Climate and the Martian Environment.- Cyclic Climate Change.- Future Climates: The Human Factor.

From the reviews:

Read and Lewis, physicists at the University of Oxford, have produced an outstanding summary of the current status of our understanding of the climate and meteorology of the planet Mars. General circulation models (GCMs) of the Martian atmosphere have been developed, and used to build a Mars Climate Database (http://www.lmd.jussieu.fr/mars.html) predicting features of the Martian atmosphere. Its data compare well with data available from Martian spacecraft, especially the Mars Global Surveyor launched in 1996 and the Viking Landers of the late 1970s. Beginning with the Navier-Stokes equation for fluid dynamics, the authors outline mathematical derivations (grounded in clear physical reasoning) to develop the partial differential equations that are solved numerically in a GCM also dependent on parameterization of physiclc)