The primary goals of our research are to understand the nature of the general circulation of the atmosphere of Mars, how that circulation is driven and how it affects martian long term climate. These studies in turn help us to understand the nature of the martian water, dust and atmospheric pressure cycles. Results of our computer modeling studies also support numerous Mars missions either underway or under study.

To accomplish this, we use a number of computer models. The simplest of these represents the atmosphere by a vertical column stretching up from the surface to some specified height. This model simulates effects such as atmospheric heating by gases and ground-air heat transfer.

The most complex is a 3 dimensional (height, latitude, longitude) model, which represents the processes in the simpler model, as well as large-scale atmospheric motions. The latter is called a GCM (General Circulation Model), and is similar in a lot of ways to the computer models that are used for weather prediction on the Earth.

Visit the links below to learn more about various characteristics of Mars.

Mars' low surface pressure ...or what happens when the atmosphere is so thin?
Mars' desert surface ...or what happens to the weather with no oceans and water?
Mars' dry ice polar caps ...or what's the effect of freezing the atmosphere?
The Martian tropics ...or does Mars have trade winds and hurricanes?
The Martian midlatitudes ...or does Mars have storms?
The Martian mountain ranges ...or how do 6 mile-high mountains affect the weather?