A temperature profile comparison between GM3 and the Mars Global Surveyor Radio Occultation dataset

This thesis presents a comparison of temperature profiles between GM3 Global Circulation Model (GCM) and the Mars Global Surveyor Radio Occultation dataset. Qualitative evaluation was carried out using root mean square difference calculations as a metre to determine how well GM3 could predict specific sample events taken from the radio occultation dataset. Over sixteen thousand sample events were analyzed using different dust optical depths as a way of determining which experiment best represented the local dust conditions at the time of the observations. Nine scenarios that varied temporal and spatial settings were selected from the MGS dataset and used for the comparison.;The GM3 model performs well given the limited spatial and temporal coverage of the MGS dataset. Under stable atmospheric conditions, discounting situations where unrepresented physics affect the sample event temperature profile, the GM3 model can produce temperature profiles with root mean square difference values as low as 2 degrees Kelvin.