European Space Agency
European Mars Science and Exploration Conference: Mars Express & ExoMars
ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands, 12 - 16 November, 2007
COMPARISON OF OMEGA AND MCD SURFACE TEMPERATURES. D. Jouglet1, F. Poulet1, J.
Girard1, A. Spiga2, F. Forget2, M. Vincendon1, Y. Langevin1, J.P. Bibring1, B. Gondet1. 1Institut
d’Astrophysique Spatiale, Université Paris-Sud, Orsay, France. 2Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique du
CNRS, Université-Paris 6, Paris, France. Contact : denis.jouglet@ias.fr.
Introduction: The imaging spectrometer Mars
Express / OMEGA observes the Martian surface in
the near-infrared up to 5
m [1]. This gives the
opportunity to derive surface temperatures. Since
OMEGA data cover a large part of the Martian
surface, a systematic comparison can be performed
with global numerical simulations. For that purpose
we use the results from the Global Circulation
Model of the Laboratoire de Météorologie
Dynamique, released in the Martian Climate
Database (MCD) [2]. The goal of this work is to 1)
test the accuracy of the OMEGA surface
temperature determination, 2) improve our
knowledge of the mechanisms influencing surface
temperature, and 3) detect variations in OMEGA
calibration and test the accuracy of new calibration
functions.
Data Processing: The studied variables are the
surface temperature TOMEGA measured by OMEGA,
the surface temperature TMCD calculated by the
MCD and their difference T.
To obtain the OMEGA temperature, reflective
radiance is subtracted to OMEGA spectra thanks to
an a priori knowledge of the 5
m reflectance
value. The resulting thermal part is fitted by the
best black body to retrieve the temperature [3].
The spatial resolution of the MCD is much
lower than that of OMEGA data, therefore a linear
interpolation is performed to get MCD data for
each OMEGA pixel. Since the MCD is also
discretized in 12 months a year and in 12 periods a
day a linear interpolation is also performed to fit
the acquisition time of OMEGA results.
Global study: The Latitude – Solar longitude
(Lat-Ls) map of TOMEGA exhibits seasonal trends
that are very consistent with the TMCD Lat-Ls map.
Results from the 1650 first orbits reveal a mean
absolute difference of ~5K (for a mean surface
temperature of ~240K). This indicates that the
OMEGA calibration function is satisfactory.
We expect lower OMEGA temperatures because
cold dust in the atmosphere cools the flux emitted
from the surface and received by OMEGA.
However the proportion of lower TMCD is large and
cannot be neglected. Moreover Lat–Ls maps for T
have also been plotted and compared to TES
measure of dust opacity [4] but no clear correlation
was observed. This suggests that the effect of dust
at 5
m is low, which is consistent with a low
optical extinction at 5
m compared to that at 1
m
or 9
m [5].
We also notice that T exhibits slight variations
over single orbits, without any obvious dependence
with other parameters (albedo, altitude, presence of
clouds). Fig. 1 reveals that the T mean value (for
nominal data) is subject to periodic variations with
time. Their origin has not yet been determined;
they are either due to a physical variation not taken
into account by the MCD or to instrumental
variations not revealed by the OMEGA response to
the calibration lamp.
Results over OMEGA not-nominal data: The
measure of the OMEGA response to a calibration
lamp reveals that the instrument absolute
calibration evolves with time (for the L channel)
[6]. For data at a non nominal calibration level, the
nominal transfer function is not adapted and the
absolute radiances are corrupted [3]. Such defects
are clearly detected in the T (fig.1, red curve)
during the calibration state transitions.
New transfer functions have been derived for
such calibration levels in previous works [6]. The
method is based on the comparison of two
observations of a same area acquired close in time
but at different calibration levels. New surface
temperatures have been derived with these new
transfer functions and the resulting T are more
consistent with the nominal data (fig.1, blue curve).
This validates the accuracy of the new transfer
functions and will enable us to derive new ones for
non nominal orbits greater than 1650.
Figure 1. Value of T (surface temperature from
OMEGA minus that from MCD) versus the orbit
number. Red: using the nominal calibration function for
OMEGA. Blue: using new adapted calibration functions
when the calibration state is not nominal. Black:
evolution of the OMEGA calibration state (the nominal
level is 1500DN for the detector).
References: [1] Bibring, J.P. et al. (2004), ESA sp1240.
[2] Lewis, S. R. et al. (1999), JGR 104, 24,177-24,194.
[3] Jouglet, D. et al. (2007), JGR 112, DOI:
10.1029/2006JE002846. [4] Smith, M.D. (2006), 2nd
workshop on Mars Atmosphere Modelling and
Observation, Granada. [5] Santee, M. L. and Crisp D.
(1995), JGR 100, 5465-5484. [6] Jouglet, D. et al.
(2007), 7th Mars Conf. Pasadena, Abs. #3157.