Probabilistic Estimates of Convective Instability in Individual MRO-MCS Temperature Retrievals

Heavens, Nicholas G. (2023), “Probabilistic Estimates of Convective Instability in Individual MRO-MCS Temperature Retrievals”, Zenodo, V1, doi: 10.5281/zenodo.7828010.

Title: Probabilistic Estimates of Convective Instability in Individual MRO-MCS Temperature Retrievals

Author: Nicholas G. Heavens, Space Science Institute, Boulder, CO, USA and London, UK ([e-mail])

Date: 15 April 2023

Overview: This dataset contains analyses of convective instabilities in individual MRO-MCS temperature profiles for a manuscript currently under review at the Planetary Science Journal.

Averaged data products based on these analyses already have been archived as Heavens (2022):

The data products are estimates of the probability of convective instability derived from diagnosis of convective instability in retrieved temperature profiles from Mars Climate Sounder on board Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO-MCS)

If you are using this dataset and are feeling confused or wish there were some additional information from the article in this dataset, please contact me. A complete account of the contents and a restatement of this description is included as MCS_CONVINST_INDFILE_SURVEY_DESC.PDF

Acknowledgments: The archiving of this dataset is supported by NASA’s Mars Data Analysis Program (80NSSC19K1215).

Contents:

MCS_CONVINST_INDFILE_SURVEY_DESC.pdf

A copy of this description in PDF format.

MCSconvinst_indivncfiles.tar.gz

This compressed tar archive contains 63196 Network Common Data Format (netCDF) files (~ 20 GB uncompressed) named in the form:

xxxxxx_convinst.nc, where xxxxxx is the re-centered orbit number of MRO defined by Heavens et al. (2018). The contents of this file type is:

Variables:

entrynum: Number to index retrievals in the file

Pgrid: The pressure (Pa) level grid

lapserateunstableprob_rets: The probability (%) of convective instability in an individual profile at a given pressure level

altrets: The altitude grid (km) of each individual profile in relative to the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) areoid

ampmrets: A flag to indicate whether MRO is in its ascending PM orbit (~ 15:00 LST at the Equator) or in its descending AM orbit (~ 3:00 at the Equator). Precise local time can be estimated by using the MRO-MCS dataset directly or using sclkrets.

latrets: The latitude of the profile in degrees north.

longrets: The longitude of the profile in degrees east

loopflagrets: A flag to indicate the presence of nearby loops; flag = 1 indicates the presence of a nearby loop.

lsrets: Areocentric longitude (degrees) of each individual profile

myrets: Mars Year of each individual profile

sclkrets: SCLK (seconds since 1 January 1980 00:00:00 UTC) for each individual profile

References

Heavens, N. (2022), Epitomic Data for a Multiannual Record of Convective Instability in Mars's Middle Atmosphere from the Mars Climate Sounder, Mendeley Data, V1, doi: 10.17632/fmgvbpwdk7.1

Heavens, N.G., A. Kleinböhl, M.S. Chaffin, J.S. Halekas, D.M. Kass, P.O. Hayne, D.J. McCleese, S. Piqueux, J.H. Shirley, and J.T. Schofield, 2018, Hydrogen escape from Mars enhanced by deep convection in dust storms, Nature Astron., 2, 126–132, doi: 10.1038/s41550-017-0353-4.