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Improved modeling of Mars' HDO cycle using a Mars' Global Climate Model
  • +11
  • Margaux Vals,
  • Rossi Loïc,
  • Franck Montmessin,
  • Franck Lefèvre,
  • Francisco Gonzalez Galindo,
  • Anna A. Fedorova,
  • Mikhail Luginin,
  • Forget Francois,
  • Ehouarn Millour,
  • Oleg I Korablev,
  • Alexander Trokhimovskiy,
  • Alexey Shakun,
  • Antoine Bierjon,
  • Luca Montabone
Margaux Vals
LATMOS CNRS/UVSQ/IPSL

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Rossi Loïc
CNRS/INSU, LATMOS-IPSL
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Franck Montmessin
LATMOS CNRS/UVSQ/IPSL
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Franck Lefèvre
LATMOS
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Francisco Gonzalez Galindo
Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, CSIC
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Anna A. Fedorova
Space Research Institute
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Mikhail Luginin
Space Research Institute
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Forget Francois
LMD
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Ehouarn Millour
Laboratoire de Meteorologie Dynamique
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Oleg I Korablev
Space Research Institute (IKI)
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Alexander Trokhimovskiy
Space Research Institute (IKI)
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Alexey Shakun
Space Research Institute (IKI)
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Antoine Bierjon
Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique
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Luca Montabone
Space Science Institute
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Abstract

HDO and the D/H ratio are essential to understand Mars past and present climate, in particular with regard to the evolution through ages of the Martian water cycle. We present here new modeling developments of the HDO cycle with the LMD Mars GCM. The present study aims at exploring the behaviour of the D/H ratio cycle and its sensitivity to the modeling of water ice clouds and the formulation of the fractionation by condensation. Our GCM simulations are compared with observations provided by the Atmospheric Chemistry Suite (ACS) on board the ESA/Roscosmos Trace Gas Orbiter, and reveal that the model quite well reproduces the temperature and water vapor fields, which offers a good basis for representing the D/H ratio cycle. The comparison also emphasizes the importance of modelling the effect of supersaturation, resulting from the microphysical processes of water ice clouds, to correctly account for the water vapor and the D/H ratio of the middle-to-upper atmosphere. This work comes jointly with a detailed comparison of the measured D/H profiles by TGO/ACS and the model outputs, conducted in the companion paper of Rossi et al. 2022 (this issue).