Sensitivity of the Global Water Cycle on Mars to the physical timestep

Author: J. Naar

Date: 09/2021

What is up with the Global Water Cycle

The implementation of Radiatively Active Clouds (RACs) in the GCM, along with a full cloud microphysics scheme, allows for a satisfying agreement between simulated Global Water Cycle and TES observations regarding atmospheric water vapor and cloud opacity (figure 1). In this configuration, the Northern polar cap is set as an infinite ground ice reservoir avalaible for sublimation (figure 2). The global water cycle is sensitive to four main parameters listed in the table below.

callphys.def from Navarro et al. 2014

PARAMETERS	COMMENTS	INTERACTION
albedo_h2o_ice=0.35	Frost & Northern water cap albedo	Ground ice
inert_h2o_ice= 800	Water ice thermal inertia	Ground ice
mteta = 0.95	Water contact parameter	Cloud microphysics
nuice_sed=0.1	Size distribution of nuclei	Cloud microphysics

Reference papers

Navarro et al. (2014), ​https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2013JE004550