Dataset: Tracking the south polar seasonal cap retreat of Mars using computer vision

These CSV files contain the ellipse fit parameters used for the analysis in Acharya, P. J., Smith, I. B., & Calvin, W. M. (2024). “Tracking the South Polar Seasonal Cap Retreat of Mars Using Computer Vision.” Icarus. DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116104. 

The SPSC ellipse is derived using a mosaic of MARCI images developed by Calvin, W. M., Cantor, B. A., & James, P. B. (2017). Interannual and seasonal changes in the south seasonal polar cap of Mars: Observations from MY 28-31 using MARCI. Icarus, 292, 144-153.. Each mosaic is 1000x1000 pixels with a spatial resolution of 0.072246423 Latitude ° per pixel. 

The file names follow the convention ##.csv, where ## represents the Mars Year (MY). The following table shows what each variable presents. 

Variable Name
Description [Units]

Ls 

Solar Lonigude [°]

Major Axis

Semi-major axis value [Latitude °]

Minor Axis

Semi-minor axis value [Latitude °]

Average Axis

Average axis (See publication for more information) [Laitutde °]

Major_Angle

Rotation of the fitted ellipse from 0E (°)

Dis_Center

Distance between the center of the ellipse and the geographical center [Latitude °]

Center X

X coordinate of the center of the ellipse [Pixels]

Center Y

Y coordinate of the center of the ellipse [Pixels]

Area

Area of the ellipse [Squared kilometers]

Circle_Radius

The radius of the circle of best fit [Latitude °]

Contour_Area

Area of the SPSC [Squared kilometers]