Mars' emitted energy and seasonal energy imbalance

Abstract

The radiant energy budget of a planet is essential to understanding its surface and atmospheric processes. Here, we report systematic measurements of Mars' emitted power, which are used to estimate the radiant energy budget of the red planet. Based on the observations from Mars Global Surveyor, Curiosity, and InSight, our measurements suggest that Mars' global-average emitted power is 111.7 ± 2.4 Wm22. More importantly, our measurements reveal strong seasonal and diurnal variations of Mars' emitted power. The strong seasonal variations further suggest an energy imbalance at the time scale of Mars' seasons (e.g., ∼15.3% of the emitted power in the Northern autumn for the Southern Hemisphere), which could play an important role in generating dust storms on Mars. We also find the 2001 global dust storm decreased the global-average emitted power by ∼22% during daytime but increased the global-average emitted power by ∼29% at nighttime. This suggests that global dust storms play a significant role in Mars' radiant energy budget.