Inferring the Speed of Sound and Wind in the Nighttime Martian Boundary Layer From Impact‐Generated Infrasound - INSU - Institut national des sciences de l'Univers
Article Dans Une Revue Geophysical Research Letters Année : 2024

Inferring the Speed of Sound and Wind in the Nighttime Martian Boundary Layer From Impact‐Generated Infrasound

Marouchka Froment
Zongbo Xu
Carène Larmat
Raphael F Garcia
Mélanie Drilleau
  • Fonction : Auteur
Brent G Delbridge
Aymeric Spiga
Taichi Kawamura

Résumé

The properties of the first kilometers of the Martian atmospheric Planetary Boundary Layer have until now been measured by only a few instruments and probes. InSight offers an opportunity to investigate this region through seismoacoustics. On six occasions, its seismometers recorded short low-frequency waveforms, with clear dispersion between 0.4 and 4 Hz. These signals are the air-to-ground coupling of impact-generated infrasound, which propagated in an low-altitude atmospheric waveguide. Their group velocity depends on the structure of effective sound speed in the boundary layer. Here, we conduct a Bayesian inversion of effective sound speed up to 2,000 m altitude using the group velocity measured for events S0981c, S0986c and S1034a. The inverted effective sound speed profiles are in good agreement with estimates provided by the Mars Climate Database. Differences between inverted and modeled profiles can be attributed to a local wind variation in the impact→station direction, of amplitude smaller than 2 m/s.

Plain Language Summary

The Martian Planetary Boundary Layer corresponds to the first few kilometers of the atmosphere. The InSight lander offers the opportunity to investigate its properties via the coupling of seismic and acoustic waves. Impact-generated infrasound waves were recorded for the first time on Mars by the seismometers of the InSight mission. These infrasound waves propagated in an atmospheric waveguide in the first kilometers above the Martian surface, and thus present a frequency-dependent group velocity. This frequency-dependence, also known as a dispersion relation, is influenced by the structure of the speed of sound in the waveguide. Here, we use group velocity measured for events S0981c, S0986c and S1034a to invert the variations of effective sound speed between 0 and 2,000 m altitude. For the three events, the inverted profiles are in good agreement with estimates provided by the Mars Climate Database using global climate modeling. The differences between inverted and modeled profiles can be attributed to a local variation in wind in the impact→station direction, with magnitude smaller than 2 m/s.

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Dates et versions

insu-04698349 , version 1 (16-09-2024)

Identifiants

Citer

Marouchka Froment, Zongbo Xu, Philippe H Lognonné, Carène Larmat, Raphael F Garcia, et al.. Inferring the Speed of Sound and Wind in the Nighttime Martian Boundary Layer From Impact‐Generated Infrasound. Geophysical Research Letters, 2024, 51, ⟨10.1029/2024gl109726⟩. ⟨insu-04698349⟩
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