Mars provides a critical analog to once habitable exoplanets that have since lost their surface liquid water. The current atmospheric state of Mars retains the chemical fingerprints of that transition, including isotopic signatures of atmospheric escape and climate evolution. As the closest accessible example of a terrestrial world with definitive evidence for once supporting liquid water on its surface, Mars presents a unique opportunity to test hypotheses about planetary habitability and atmospheric evolution in a spatially and temporally resolved way.

Nadir and Occultation for Mars Discovery (NOMAD) onboard ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) started the science measurements on 21 April, 2018. We present results on the retrievals of water vapor vertical profiles in the Martian atmosphere from the first Mars year measurements of the TGO/NOMAD.NOMAD is a spectrometer operating in the spectral ranges between 0.2 and 4.3 μm onboard ExoMars TGO. NOMAD has 3 spectral channels: a solar occultation channel (SO – Solar Occultation; 2.3–4.3 μm), a second infrared channel capable of nadir, solar occultation, and limb sounding (LNO – Limb Nadir and solar Occultation; 2.3–3.8 μm), and an ultraviolet/visible channel (UVIS – Ultraviolet and Visible Spectrometer, 200–650 nm). The infrared channels (SO and LNO) have high spectral resolution (λ/dλ~10,000–20,000) provided by an echelle grating used in combination with an Acousto Optic Tunable Filter (AOTF) which selects diffraction orders. The concept of the infrared channels are derived from the Solar Occultation in the IR (SOIR) instrument onboard Venus Express (VEx). The sampling rate for the solar occultation measurement is 1 second, which provides better vertical sampling step (~1 km) with higher resolution (~2 km) from the surface to 200 km. Thanks to the instantaneous change of the observing diffraction orders achieved by the AOTF, the SO channel is able to measure five or six different diffraction orders per second in solar occultation mode. In this study, we analyze the solar occultation measurements at diffraction order 134 (3011-3035 cm-1), order 136 (3056-3080 cm-1) and 168 (3775-3805 cm-1) acquired by the SO channel in order to investigate H2O vertical profiles.Knowledge of the water vapor vertical distribution is important to understand the water cycle and escape processes. Solar occultation measurements by the two spectrometers onboard TGO - NOMAD and Atmospheric Chemistry Suite (ACS) - allow us to monitor daily the water vapor vertical profiles through one whole Martian Year and obtain a latitudinal map for every ~20° of Ls. In 2018, for the first time after 2007, a global dust storm occurred on Mars. It lasted for more than two months (from June to August). Moreover, following the global dust storm, a regional dust storm occurred in January 2019. TGO began its science operations on 21 April 2018. NOMAD observations therefore fully cover the period before/during/after the global and regional dust storms and offer a unique opportunity to study the trace gases distributions during such events. We have analyzed those datasets and found a significant increase of water vapor abundance in the middle atmosphere (40-100 km) during the global dust storm from June to mid-September 2018 and the regional dust storm in January 2019. In particular, water vapor reaches very high altitudes, at least 100 km, during the global dust storm (Aoki et al., 2019, Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume124, Issue12, Pages 3482-3497, doi:10.1029/2019JE006109). A GCM simulation explained that dust storm related increases of atmospheric temperatures suppress the hygropause, hence reducing ice cloud formation and so allowing water vapor to extend into the middle atmosphere (Neary et al., 2020, Geophysical Research Letters, 47, e2019GL084354., doi: 10.1029/2019GL084354). The current study presents the results obtained when considering the extended dataset, which covers a full Martian year. The extended dataset includes the recent aphelion season that involves interesting phenomena such as sublimation of water vapor from the northern polar cap and formation of the equatorial cloud belt, and is known as a key period to understand the large north-south hemispheric asymmetries of Mars water vapor. Yet, until now, only few papers reported the water vapor vertical distribution during the aphelion season. The extended dataset also includes the period when the global dust storm occurred the year before; this will allow us to compare the water vapor distributions under global dust storm conditions with those found during non-global dust storm years. In the presentation, we will discuss the H2O vertical profiles as well as the aerosols vertical distribution retrieved from the first full Martian year measurements of the TGO/NOMAD.

Mars’ water history is fundamental to understanding Earth-like planet evolution. Water escapes to space as atoms, and hydrogen atoms escape faster than deuterium giving an increase in the residual D/H ratio. The present ratio reflects the total water Mars has lost. Observations with the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) and Hubble Space Telescope (HST) spacecraft provide atomic densities and escape rates for H and D. Large increases near perihelion observed each martian year are consistent with a strong upwelling of water vapor. Short-term changes require processes in addition to thermal escape, likely from atmospheric dynamics and superthermal atoms. Including escape from hot atoms, both H and D escape rapidly, and the escape fluxes are limited by resupply from the lower atmosphere. In this paradigm for the escape of water, the D/H ratio of the escaping atoms and the enhancement in water are determined by upwelling water vapor and atmospheric dynamics rather than by the specific details of atomic escape.

* The SO channel of the NOMAD instrument The NOMAD-SO channel [1] is an infrared spectrometer working in the 2.2 to 4.3 µm spectral range (2200-4500 cm-1) and started to perform solar occultation measurement on April 21, 2018. The instrument is composed of an echelle grating coupled to an Acousto-Optical Tunable Filter for the diffraction order selection. As TGO is on a quasi-circular orbit at around 400 km of altitude, it performs one orbit every two hours. During a solar occultation measurement, SO scans six diffraction orders each second. These diffraction orders are recorded on four bins leading to a vertical sampling lower than one km. The calibration of the SO channel is described in [2] and is still being fine-tuned. * CO2 density and temperature profiles retrievals Several diffraction orders probe different altitude ranges as they contain CO2 lines with different intensities that appear and saturate at different altitudes. Correct temperature profiles are necessary for the retrieval of several species and the profiles have to be carefully retrieved as their inversion is very sensitive to noise. We use the following retrieval scheme: For each solar occultation measurement, we derive a slant column profile of CO2 using ASIMUT-ALVL [3]. ASIMUT is a radiative transfer program developed at BIRA-IASB and uses the Optimal Estimation Method for regularization [4]. The GEM-Mars GCM provides the a priori profiles of CO2 local density, pressure and temperature. We then apply an iterated Tikhonov regularization to derive a regularized local density profile using an improved version of the algorithm described in [5]. This method requires the selection of a regularization parameter to reduce as much as possible the presence of noise in the profile while keeping the real variations. This retrieval scheme allows a fine-tuning of the reguralization parameter. We finally apply the hydrostatic equilibrium equation to derive the temperature profiles [6]. We derived the NOMAD-SO CO2 and temperature profiles for MY34 and 35.

Ozone simulated in Mars Global Climate Models (MGCMs) is used to assess the underlying chemistry occurring in the atmosphere. Currently, ozone total column abundance (TCA) is under-predicted in MGCMs by up to 120%, implying missing or inaccurate chemistry in models. Heterogeneous reactions of hydroxyl radicals (HOX) have been offered as an explanation for some of this bias, because they cause ozone to increase at locations where it's currently under-predicted. We use four simulations to compare modeled ozone TCA with observations from the UVIS spectrometer aboard the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter to improve the representation of heterogeneous processes and their impact on ozone. We use a gas-phase only run, a dissociative scheme, an adsorbed HOX retention scheme, and a hybrid scheme that combines the dissociative mechanism with the retention of HOX on water ice. We find retention of HOX is dependent on water ice sublimation, and ozone abundance increases when water ice persists for longer periods (1-20 sols). Over time, the loss of HOX causes a depletion in H2O2 concentration (HOX reservoir), and thus allows ozone concentration to increase. When adsorbed HOX are desorbed and dissociate into other by-products, HOX are not immediately available to destroy ozone. This results in larger ozone concentrations than if desorbed HOX are released directly back into their gaseous states. When using the hybrid scheme, ozone TCA is increased up to 50% where the ozone deficit is greatest, demonstrating the best agreement with observations, and implying that HOX radicals are both retained when adsorbed and dissociate. Ozone is a trace gas in the martian atmosphere, sensitive to chemical and light-induced reactions. This makes it ideal for assessing the underlying reactions for chemical species called hydroxyl radicals, which destroy ozone and would otherwise be too reactive and shortlived to be measured directly. There has been an under-prediction of ozone in global climate models which implies missing or inaccurate reactions. Heterogeneous reactions (a reaction which includes two or more phases) have been suggested to fill the deficit in modeled ozone. This involves hydroxyl radicals adsorbing onto water ice, which causes ozone to increase. We look at different simulations to understand hydroxyl radical chemistry on the surface of water ice by comparing to observations from the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. We run four climate model simulations to test different theories as to what is occurring at the surface. There are two theories (a) reactions happen at the surface which alter hydroxyl radicals into other chemicals, and (b) hydroxyl radicals stay adsorbed onto water ice for as long as the ice persists. When we combine these theories, we have a more accurate prediction of ozone, which we can then use to infer what happens at the surface. Heterogeneous reactions can have a major impact on martian ozone abundance at locations where water ice clouds persist for several sols Lifetime of adsorbed hydroxyl radicals depends on water ice sublimation and longer lifetimes result in a greater abundance of ozone A combination of longer lifetimes and dissociation of adsorbed HOX suppresses gaseous HOX and improves simulated ozone total column abundance

Observations of the vertical distribution of water vapour provide a unique snapshot of the vertical transport processes that contribute to the global martian hydrological cycle. While previous datasets have largely been seasonally and spatially sparse, vertical profiles of water retrieved from the Nadir and Occultation for MArs Discovery (NOMAD) and Atmospheric Chemistry Suite (ACS) instruments on the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) provide the most complete dataset so far. These data are now capable of providing robust constraints on the 4-D distribution of water, especially when also combined with retrievals of additional atmospheric properties (e.g. temperature profiles, dust column) that exert an influence on the evolving global water distribution. A key limitation though is the fact that observations of water profiles are still relatively limited in coverage, in the global sense, and the vertical distribution of water at latitudes and times not regularly probed by NOMAD and ACS remains poorly understood. To address this, we have created a global reference climatology of water vertical distribution for Mars Year (MY) 34 through a multi-spacecraft data assimilation combining several retrieval datasets with a Mars Global Circulation Model. Retrievals of dust column and temperature profiles from Mars Climate Sounder on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and water vapour and temperature profiles from multiple instruments on the ExoMars TGO during the primary science phase covering the latter half of MY34 are combined through assimilation to create one unified physically consistent global dataset. The vertical water vapour distribution is investigated globally. During the initial coverage of TGO observation that covers the dusty season in MY34, northern polar latitudes are largely absent of water vapour below 20 km with variations in abundance above this altitude throughout the dusty season linked to transport from mid-latitudes during a global dust storm, perihelion season and the intense MY34 C storm. The atmosphere is in a supersaturated state above 60 km for most of the time period investigated, with lower altitudes showing more diurnal variation in the saturation state of the atmosphere. A key benefit of the data assimilation technique is that constraints on dynamical transport imposed by the assimilated water vapour and temperature profiles leads to improvements in the simulated water ice distribution even though it is not altered directly by the assimilation process. The climatology created, which will become publicly available for wider use by the martian scientific community, has also been independently validated against water vapour profiles from the SPICAM instrument.

The evolution of water on Mars is a major scientific topic that can in part be advanced through the provision of bounded constraints on the rates of water loss. The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph instrument continues to monitor the Lyman alpha brightness from Mars that is intricately linked to the hydrogen escape flux, but converting the emission data to hydrogen escape fluxes is difficult. We provide a complementary approach by combining retrievals of water vapour, temperature and dust from multiple spacecraft in orbit around Mars through a process called data assimilation. Recent instrument data from the Nadir and Occultation for MArs Discovery (NOMAD) and Atmospheric Chemistry Suite (ACS) instruments on the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) provide a relative wealth of water vapor vertical profiles that are critical in constraining the vertical distribution and transport of water, the main chemical species that influences hydrogen escape rates. This lower atmosphere assimilation, that forms part of the OpenMARS (Open access to Mars Assimilated Remote Soundings) dataset, is coupled to a state of the art upper atmosphere model. Number densities of key chemical species in the assimilation are passed as a lower boundary to the upper atmosphere model to drive calculations of hydrogen escape at 200 km altitude.We investigate the escape of hydrogen during the time period that covers the primary science phase of the ExoMars TGO mission until the end of Mars Year (MY) 35 (around 1.5 Mars years). Hydrogen escape during the perihelion season is found to be a factor of 10 increased compared to aphelion, as a result of the seasonal pump of water vapor from the southern polar cap twinned with increased levels of atmospheric dust. The general trend over the perihelion season is in line with the first-order fit of Hubble Space Telescope hydrogen escape fluxes, although larger temporal variations are evident in the model simulations as these can compute the hydrogen escape flux at much finer temporal resolution. Variations in the peak intensity of hydrogen escape flux in both MY are evident, with the global dust storm in MY34 creating an early dust season peak which seems to diminish the peak at perihelion found a year later. The southern summer regional-scale dust storms that occur each year create a late season peak in hydrogen escape flux, with year-to-year variability in the exact timing of this particular dust storm as leading to a shift in the timing of peak hydrogen escape.

The NOMAD instrument suite on the ESA-Roskosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) observes the physical and chemical composition of the Martian atmosphere with highly resolved vertical profiles and nadir sounding in the IR and UV-vis domains. Vertically resolved profiles of, amongst other species, water vapor, HDO, ozone, CO, CO2, oxygen airglow, dust and clouds were obtained for more than one Martian year [1-5]. During its first year of operations, NOMAD witnessed the 2018 Global Dust Storm (GDS) during its onset, peak and decline. The redistribution of water vapor to high altitudes and latitudes observed during the GDS was explained using the GEM-Mars General Circulation Model (GCM) [6-8]. The GCM was driven by the dust optical depths for Mars Year 34 provided by [9]. The photolysis products of water vapor are a major driver for the atmospheric chemistry on Mars. As water vapor is redistributed over the atmosphere, it is expected to have considerable impact on many other species. GEM-Mars contains routines for atmospheric chemistry and here we present some results of the simulated impact of the GDS on atmospheric chemistry and on several of the observed species. GEM-Mars now also includes the simulation of HDO and the fractionation of water vapor upon cloud formation. The simulations will be compared with the vertical profiles of the D/H ratio obtained from NOMAD observations. The impact of the GDS on D/H can be estimated from these simulations. References [1] Vandaele, A. C. et al. (2019), Nature, 568, 7753, 521-525, doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1097-3.[2] Aoki, S. et al. (2019), J. Geophys. Res.: Planets, 124, 3482–3497. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JE006109[3] Gérard et al. (2020), Nature Astronomy, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-020-1123-2[4] Villanueva et al., submitted.[5] Korablev et al., 2020, in rev.[6] Neary, L. and F. Daerden (2018), Icarus, 300, 458–476, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2017.09.028[7] Daerden, F. et al. (2019), Icarus, 326, 197-224, doi: 10.1016/j.icarus.2019.02.030.[8] Neary, L. et al. (2020), Geophys. Res. Lett., 47, e2019GL084354. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL084354[9] Montabone, L. et al. (2019), J. Geophys. Res.: Planets. doi: 10.1029/2019JE006111. 2.11.0.

Here we report a global model of meteoric metals including Mg, Fe and Na in the Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (LMD) Mars global circulation model (termed as LMD-Mars-Metals), following on similar work as we have done for the Earth’s atmosphere. The model has been developed by combining three components: the state-of-the-art LMD-Mars model covering the whole atmosphere from the surface to the upper thermosphere (up to ~ 2 x10-8 Pa or 240 km), a description of the neutral and ion-molecule chemistry of Mg, Fe and Na in the Martian atmosphere (where the high CO2 abundance produces a rather different chemistry from the terrestrial atmosphere), and a treatment of injection of the metals into the atmosphere as a result of the ablation of cosmic dust particles. The LMD-Mars model contains a detailed treatment of atmospheric physics, dynamics and chemistry from the lower atmosphere to the ionosphere. The model also includes molecular diffusion and considers the chemistry of the C, O, H and N families and major photochemical ion species in the upper atmosphere, as well as improved treatments of the day-to-day variability of the UV solar flux and 15 mm CO2 cooling under non-local thermodynamic equilibrium conditions. So far, we have incorporated the chemistries of Mg, Fe and Na into LMD-Mars because these metals have different chemistries which control the characteristic features of their ionized and neutral layers in the Martian atmosphere. The Mg chemistry has 4 neutral and 6 ionized Mg-containing species, connected by 25 neutral and ion-molecule reactions. The corresponding Fe chemistry has 39 reactions with 14 Fe-containing species. Na chemistry has 7 neutral and only 2 ionized Na-containing species, with 32 reactions. The injection rate of these metals as a function of height is pre-calculated from the Leeds Chemical Ablation Model (CABMOD) combined with an astronomical model which predicts the dust from Jupiter Family and Long Period comets, as well as the asteroid belt, in the inner solar system. The LMD-Mars-Metals model has been run for several full Martian years under different surface dust scenarios to investigate the impact of high atmospheric dust loadings on the modelled metal layers. The model has been evaluated against Mg+ observations from IUVS (Imaging UV Spectrometer) and NGIMS (Neutral Gas Ion Mass Spectrometer) instruments on NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission (MAVEN) spacecraft. We have also carried out other sensitivity experiments with different seasonality/altitude/latitudinal varying of Meteoric Input Function (MIF) of these metals in the model. These sensitivity results will be discussed.

Since the discovery of atmospheric Mg+ on Mars in 2015 by the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission, there have been almost continuous observations of this meteoric ion layer in a variety of seasons, local times, and latitudes. Here, we present the most comprehensive set of observations of the persistent metal ion layer at Mars, constructing the first grand composite maps from pooled medians of subsamples of a metallic ion species. These maps demonstrate that Mg+ appears in almost all conditions when illuminated, with peak density values varying between 100 and 500 cm(-3), dependent on season and local time. There exists significant latitudinal variation within a given season, indicating that Mg+ is not simply an inert tracer, but may instead be influenced by the meteoric input distribution and/or atmospheric dynamics and chemistry. Geographic maps of Mg+ density as a function of latitude and longitude indicate the influence of atmospheric tides, and there is no apparent correlation with remnant crustal magnetic fields. This work also presents counter-intuitive results, such as a reduction of Mg+ ions in the northern hemisphere during Northern Winter in an apparent correlation with dust aerosols.

The Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) on the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission has been used to observe the Mg+ in the upper atmosphere of Mars since 2015. These observations reveal significant diurnal, seasonal and latitudinal variations. For example, a factor of two change in Mg+ occurs during the day at the equator and Mg+ above 100 km decreases across the globe during the Southern Hemisphere summertime. Possible causes include the influence of photo-chemistry, atmospheric dynamics and the injection rate of meteoric material. To delineate these sources of variability, a 3-dimensional model of the Martian Mg has been developed. The model is based on the Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (LMD) Mars global circulation model (GCM), which is capable of simulating the seasonal cycles in the Martian atmosphere arising from changes in heating rates from orbital geometry and the distribution of dust in the lower atmosphere. The model solves for the dynamics and primary constituents of the atmosphere from the surface to the thermosphere. For this study, the chemistry has been augmented with neutral and ion chemistry for meteoric metals within a CO2 atmosphere, incorporating 7 neutral and 8 ionized Mg-containing species and an additional 42 neutral and ion-molecule reactions. The atmospheric input of meteoric material is specified from seasonal and latitudinal fits to new estimates of the deposition of the ablated metals in the atmosphere. Here we present the first detailed intercomparison of the MAVEN IUV Mg+ observations with simulated Mg+ from the LMD Mars GCM. Model variability is consistent with observations and indicates tropical variability is caused by a combination of photochemistry and vertical transport by atmospheric tides. Comparisons of simulations performed with variable and fixed meteoric input show that the high latitude variations are caused by both seasonal variation in ablation rates and the residual circulation. Finally, we show how Mg+ varies in relation to neutral Mg and the remaining Mg-containing species to determine how Mg+ may be used as a proxy for total Mg variability.

It is evident that a variety of metals are deposited in the Earth’s mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT, ~70-120 km) through meteoric ablation when the cosmic dust particles enter the atmosphere at high entry velocity (11-72 km/s). However, it is still unclear how much and accuarate cosmic dust enters the atmosphere of Mars (though the estimation of global dust input would be a few tons per sol) and what is the difference comparing to Earth’s atmosphere (which has a 1-2 order global input range from different estimations). We have developed global atmospheric meteoric models of Na, Fe, K, Mg, Ni, Ca, Al, Si, P, S etc) into the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM) and its vertical extensions to 600 km (WACCM-X) from US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR, termed WACCM-metals), which simulate well the metal layers compared with the available lidar/rocket/satellite measurements. New observations of some metals for the Martian atmosphere (i.e., Mg+ observations from IUVS (Imaging UV Spectrometer) and Mg+, Na+ and Fe+ from NGIMS (Neutral Gas Ion Mass Spectrometer)) instruments on NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission (MAVEN) spacecraft are available from 2014. Therefore, we have incorporated the chemistry of three metals (Mg, Na and Fe) in the Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (LMD) Mars global circulation model (termed as LMD-Mars-Metals), following similar work we have done for the Earth’s atmosphere. The model has been developed by combining three components: the state-of-the-art LMD-Mars model covering the whole atmosphere from the surface to the upper thermosphere (up to ~ 2 x10-8 Pa or 240 km), a description of the neutral and ion-molecule chemistry of Mg, Fe and Na in the Martian atmosphere (where the high CO2 abundance produces a rather different chemistry from the terrestrial atmosphere), and a treatment of injection of the metals into the atmosphere from the ablation of cosmic dust particles. The LMD-Mars model contains a detailed treatment of atmospheric physics, dynamics and chemistry from the lower atmosphere to the ionosphere. The model also includes molecular diffusion and considers the chemistry of the C, O, H and N families and major photochemical ion species in the upper atmosphere, as well as improved treatments of the day-to-day variability of the UV solar flux and 15 mm CO2 cooling under non-local thermodynamic equilibrium conditions. We have incorporated the chemistries of Mg, Fe and Na into LMD-Mars because these metals have different chemistries which control the characteristic features of their ionized and neutral layers in the Martian atmosphere. The Mg chemistry adds 7 neutral and 8 ionized Mg-containing species, connected by 42 neutral and ion-molecule reactions. The corresponding Fe chemistry has 39 reactions with 14 Fe-containing species. Na chemistry adds 7 neutral and only 2 ionized Na-containing species, with 32 reactions. The injection rate of these metals as a function of latitude, solar longitude at different pressure levels is pre-calculated from the Leeds Chemical Ablation Model (CABMOD) combined with an astronomical model which predicts the dust from Jupiter Family and Long Period comets, as well as the asteroid belt, in the inner solar system. The model has been evaluated against by Mg+, Na+ and Fe+ observations from IUVS and NGIMS measurements. The comparison of these metal layers between Earth’s and Mar’s atmospheres will be discussed, which allows us to understand the meteor astronomy, chemistry and transport processes that control the different metal layers in the upper atmosphere on different planets.

To understand the evolving martian water cycle, a global perspective of the combined vertical and horizontal distribution of water is needed in relation to supersaturation and water loss and how it varies spatially and temporally. The global vertical water vapor distribution is investigated through an analysis that unifies water, temperature and dust retrievals from several instruments on multiple spacecraft throughout Mars Year (MY) 34 with a global circulation model. During the dusty season of MY 34, northern polar latitudes are largely absent of water vapor below 20 km with variations above this altitude due to transport from mid-latitudes during a global dust storm, the downwelling branch of circulation during perihelion season and the intense MY 34 southern summer regional dust storm. Evidence is found of supersaturated water vapor breaking into the northern winter polar vortex. Supersaturation above around 60 km is found for most of the time period, with lower altitudes showing more diurnal variation in the saturation state of the atmosphere. Discrete layers of supersaturated water are found across all latitudes. The global dust storm and southern summer regional dust storm forced water vapor at all latitudes in a supersaturated state to 60-90 km where it is more likely to escape from the atmosphere. The reanalysis data set provides a constrained global perspective of the water cycle in which to investigate the horizontal and vertical transport of water throughout the atmosphere, of critical importance to understand how water is exchanged between different reservoirs and escapes the atmosphere.

This study provides a comprehensive description of the deposition of meteor-ablated metals in the upper atmosphere of Mars, accounting for the temporal, vertical, latitudinal, and seasonal distribution. For this purpose, the Leeds Chemical Ablation MODel (CABMOD) is combined with a Meteoroid Input Function (MIF) to characterize the size and velocity distributions of three distinctive meteoroid populations around Mars – the Jupiter-Family Comets (JFCs), main-belt asteroid (ASTs), and Halley-Type Comets (HTCs). These modelling results show a significant midnight-to-noon enhancement of the total mass influx because of the orbital dynamics of Mars, with meteoroid impacts preferentially distributed around the equator for particle with diameters below 2000 µm. The maximum total mass input occurs between the northern winter and the first crossing of the ecliptic plane with 2.30 tons sol-1, with the JFCs being the main contributor to the overall influx with up to 56% around the Mars equator. Similarly, total ablated atoms mainly arise from the HTCs with a maximum injection rate of 0.71 tons sol-1 spanning from the perihelion to the northern winter. In contrast, the minimum mass and ablated inputs occur between the maximum vertical distance above the ecliptic plane and the aphelion with 1.50 and 0.42 tons sol-1, respectively. Meteoric ablation occurs approximately in the range altitude between 100 and 60 km with a strong midnight-to-noon enhancement at equatorial latitudes. The eccentricity and the inclination of Mars’ orbit produces a significant shift of the ablation peak altitude at high latitudes as Mars moves towards, or away, from the northern/southern solstices.

<p class="Abstract">Since the discovery of atmospheric Mg<sup>+</sup> at Mars in 2015 by the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission, there have been almost continuous observations of this meteoric ion layer in a variety of seasons, local times, and latitudes. Here we present the most comprehensive set of observations of the persistent metal ion layer at Mars, constructing the first grand composite maps of a metallic ion species. These maps demonstrate that Mg<sup>+</sup> appears in almost all conditions when illuminated, with peak values varying between 100 and 500 cm<sup>-3</sup>, dependent on season and local time. There exists significant latitudinal variation within a given season, indicating that Mg<sup>+</sup> is not simply an inert tracer, but instead may be influenced by the meteoric input distribution and/or atmospheric dynamics and chemistry. Geographic maps of latitude and longitude indicate that Mg<sup>+</sup> may be influenced by atmospheric tides, and there is no apparent correlation with remnant crustal magnetic fields. This work also presents counter-intuitive results, such as a reduction of Mg<sup>+</sup> ions in the northern hemisphere during Northern Winter in an apparent correlation with dust aerosols.</p>

Interplanetary dust particles, liberated from the surfaces of comets and asteroids, are ubiquitous in interplanetary space within the solar system. These particles travel at orbital velocities and ablate upon entry into planetary atmospheres, where they are the sole explanation for high altitude atmospheric metal layers. On Earth, such layers inform us of the dynamics of the upper atmosphere, and we use the abundance of relative species to investigate the origin of these particles from various potential sources (Jupiter family comets, asteroids, etc.). Since the discovery of atmospheric Mg+ at Mars in 2015, there have been almost continuous observations of this layer in a variety of seasons, local times, and latitudes. Here we present the most comprehensive set of observations of the persistent metal ion layer at Mars, constructing the first grand average maps of metal ions species. Such maps can be compared to current and future modeling efforts, which attempt to track mesospheric transport, chemistry and interplanetary dust particle sources. This work confirms some previous model predictions and observations, such as the relatively long lifetime of Mg+, but also presents counter-intuitive results, such as a paucity of Mg+ ions in the northern hemisphere during Northern Winter in an apparent correlation with dust aerosols. Previous discrepancies between model predictions and metal ion observations led to the development of a novel nucleation scheme for mesospheric clouds, and we revisit these ideas on a global and seasonally varying scale. Overall, this represents the broadest investigation of meteoric metal ions, summarizes the first order behavior and outlines new model challenges for the future.

The vertical profiles of water vapor and its semi‐heavy hydrogen isotope HDO provided by instruments on ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter constitute a unique new data set to understand the Martian water cycle including its isotopic composition. As water vapor undergoes hydrogen isotopic fractionation upon deposition (but not sublimation), the D/H isotopic ratio in water is a tracer of phase transitions, and a key quantity to understand the long‐term history of water on Mars. Here, we present 3D global simulations of D/H in water vapor and compare them to the vertically resolved observations of D/H and water ice clouds taken by NOMAD during the second half of Mars year 34. D/H is predicted to be constant with height up to the main cloud level, above which it drops because of strong fractionation, explaining the upper cut‐off in the NOMAD observations when HDO drops below detectability. During the global and regional dust storms of 2018/2019, we find that HDO ascends with H 2 O, and that the D/H ratio is constant and detectable up to larger heights. The simulations are within the provided observational uncertainties over wide ranges in season, latitude and height. Our work provides evidence that the variability of the D/H ratio in the lower and middle atmosphere of Mars is controlled by fractionation on water ice clouds, and thus modulated by diurnally and seasonally varying cloud formation. We find no evidence of other processes or reservoirs that would have a significant impact on the D/H ratio in water vapor.

Following the recent detection of HCl in the atmosphere of Mars by ExoMars/Trace Gas Orbiter, we present here the first measurement of the 37Cl/35Cl isotopic ratio in the Martian atmosphere using a set of Nadir Occultation for MArs Discovery (NOMAD) observations. We determine an isotopic anomaly of −6 ± 78‰ compared to Earth standard, consistent with the −51‰–−1‰ measured on Mars’ surface by Curiosity. The measured isotopic ratio is also consistent with surface measurements, and suggests that Cl reservoirs may have undergone limited processing since formation in the Solar Nebula. The examination of possible sources and sinks of HCl shows only limited pathways to short‐term efficient Cl fractionation and many plausible reservoirs of “light” Cl.

Isotopic ratios and, in particular, the water D/H ratio are powerful tracers of the evolution and transport of water on Mars. From measurements performed with ExoMars/NOMAD, we observe marked and rapid variability of the D/H along altitude on Mars and across the whole planet. The observations (from April 2018 to April 2019) sample a broad range of events on Mars, including a global dust storm, the evolution of water released from the southern polar cap during southern summer, the equinox phases, and a short but intense regional dust storm. In three instances, we observe water at very high altitudes (>80 km), the prime region where water is photodissociated and starts its escape to space. Rayleigh distillation appears the be the driving force affecting the D/H in many cases, yet in some instances, the exchange of water reservoirs with distinctive D/H could be responsible.

Interplanetary dust is a scientifically important constituent of the Solar System that consists of material shed by asteroids, comets, and other airless bodies.As used here, the term "dust" includes interplanetary dust particles and micrometeoroids.Dust has been studied by missions such as Mariner, Pioneer, and Voyager in both interplanetary space and in the vicinity of most of the planets.To date, however, no dedicated interplanetary dust instrument has yet been employed for detailed analysis of the dust environment of Mars.Partial data on dust flux has been provided by the 1965 Mariner IV flyby, the MAVEN orbiter, and other missions, but a complete understanding of interplanetary dust abundance, composition, debris hazard, annual flux variation, and origins is lacking.These data are critical for understanding the effects of dust upon the martian system, including the carbonaceous input into the regolith of Mars and its moons, the chemical input into the martian atmosphere, potential effects upon remote sensing data, the hypothesized existence of a Phobos dust ring, and possible annual variations from meteor shower infall.These effects have direct ramifications for interpretation of Mars/Phobos/Deimos mission science and analysis of returned samples from those worlds.To remediate this shortfall, the authors recommend that a dedicated interplanetary dust analysis instrument should be included in the instrument package for an upcoming martian orbiter in the near term.Such an interplanetary dust analysis instrument should collect data over a time period of several martian years in order to generate a statistically robust data set on interplanetary dust concentration and flux over a wide range of mass, and to discern temporal variation over multiple martian years.