2023-11-01 NASA
◆公開された。論文は、火星気候サウンダーを使用して季節と地域ごとに火星の雲分布を観察した結果を示し、高高度のCO2氷雲、極近くで形成される雲、および埃の多い季節の水氷雲など、複数の雲のポピュレーションが特定された。
◆論文はプロジェクトの動機、セットアップ、機械学習を使用した雲の特定方法についても説明しており、市民科学者の貢献に感謝の意を表明している。
＜関連情報＞
- https://science.nasa.gov/get-involved/citizen-science/new-patterns-in-marss-clouds-revealed-by-volunteers/
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019103523003548
市民科学プロジェクト「Cloudspotting on Mars」： マーズ・クライメート・サウンダーが観測した季節的・空間的雲分布 The Cloudspotting on Mars citizen science project: Seasonal and spatial cloud distributions observed by the Mars Climate Sounder
Marek Slipski, Armin Kleinböhl, Steven Dillmann, David M. Kass, Jason Reimuller, Mark Wronkiewicz, Gary Doran
Icarus Available online 5 September 2023
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2023.115777
Highlights
•The Mars Climate Sounder serendipitously observes aerosol layers in limb observations.
•The Cloudspotting on Mars citizen science project enabled identification of clouds throughout Mars Year 29.
•A customized clustering algorithm optimizes the aggregation of citizen-scientist annotations.
•Maps of clouds show effects of thermal tides and dust on cloud formation.
Abstract
As tracers of the major volatile cycles of MarsCO2, H2O, and dustclouds are important for understanding the circulation of the martian atmosphere and hence martian climate. We present the spatial and seasonal distribution of laterally-confined clouds in the middle atmosphere of Mars during one Mars Year as identified in limb radiance measurements by the Mars Climate Sounder. Cloud identifications were made by citizen scientists through the “Cloudspotting on Mars” citizen science project, hosted on the citizen science platform Zooniverse. A method to aggregate the crowdsourced data using a novel clustering algorithm is developed. The derived cloud catalog is presented and the seasonal and spatial distribution of clouds is discussed in terms of key populations.
