3D Simulations of the Early Mars Climate with a General Circulation Model
The environmental conditions that existed on Mars during the Noachian period are subject to debate in the community. In any case, there are compelling evidence that these conditions were different than what they became later in the amazonian and possibly the Hesperian periods. Indeed, most of the old cratered terrains are disected by valley networks (thought to have been carved by flowing liquid water), whereas younger surface are almost devoid of such valleys. In addition, there are evidence that the erosion rate was much higher during the early noachian than later. Flowing water is surprising on early Mars because the solar luminosity was significantly lower than today. Even with the thick atmosphere (up to several bars).To improve our understanding of the early Mars Climate, we have developed a 3D general circulation model similar to the one used on current Earth or Mars to study the details of the climate today. Our first objective is to answer the following questions : how is the Martian climate modified if 1) the surface pressure is increased up to several bars (our baseline: 2 bars) and 2) if the sun luminosity is decreased by 25 account the heat possibly released by impacts during short periods, although it may have played a role .For this purpose, we have coupled the Martian General Circulation model developed at LMD with a sophisticated correlated k distribution model developped at NASA Ames Research Center. It is a narrow band model which computes the radiative transfer at both solar and thermal wavelengths (from 0.3 to 250 microns).