The Penetration of Solar Radiation Into Carbon Dioxide Ice

Citation

Chinnery H, Hagermann A, Kaufmann E & Lewis SR (2018) The Penetration of Solar Radiation Into Carbon Dioxide Ice. Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, 123 (4), pp. 864-871. https://doi.org/10.1002/2018JE005539

Abstract
Icy surfaces behave differently to rocky or regolith‐covered surfaces in response to irradiation. A key factor is the ability of visible light to penetrate partially into the subsurface. This results in the solid‐state greenhouse effect, as ices can be transparent or translucent to visible and shorter wavelengths, while opaque in the infrared. This can lead to significant differences in shallow subsurface temperature profiles when compared to rocky surfaces. Of particular significance for modeling the solid‐state greenhouse effect is the e‐folding scale, otherwise known as the absorption scale length, or penetration depth, of the ice. While there have been measurements for water ice and snow, pure and with mixtures, to date, there have been no such measurements published for carbon dioxide ice. After an extensive series of measurements we are able to constrain the e‐folding scale of CO2 ice for the cumulative wavelength range 300 to 1,100 nm, which is a vital parameter in heat transfer models for the Martian surface, enabling us to better understand surface‐atmosphere interactions at Mars' polar caps.

Keywords
carbon dioxide; ice; Mars; polar caps; e‐folding scale; solar irradiation

Journal
Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets: Volume 123, Issue 4

• Chinnery_et_al-2018-Journal_of_Geophysical_Research_A_Planets.pdf