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Blue Mars - DHI is working with water wherever it is found

23 Dec 2004   <em>Ten or twelve hours later big swells would roll in from the North, and rise up and hammer the sea cliffs, fifty meter high wedges of water blasting to spray against the rock until the air over the peninsula was a thick white mist.</em> <br />Quotation from Blue Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson


This is how a modern science fiction writer depicts a time in the future, where mankind has terraformed Mars into a planet with atmosphere and water and oceans suited for human beings.

This scenario is not at all farfetched. New evidence shows, that there is likely to be water on Mars now, in the form of ice, and earlier, maybe only a few million of years ago, as liquid water.

DHI is working with water wherever it is found. We have developed mathematical models for water movement and quality for standard water systems on the earth and are now in the process of porting these models to other systems. We have started to simulate the properties of the Martian waters at the time when they, hypothetically, did exist by using existing information on Mars conditions, particularly topography, combined with estimates of the quantities of water on Mars.

The aims of this venture are for research purposes, examples are:

  • To obtain a better understanding of the formation of Mars during geological times. Some of the geological features of Mars may likely have been created by water. The shaping processes can be simulated using morphological models.
  • General Ocean Circulation Models are used for understanding and simulating climate change effects on Earth. All these models are developed for Earth conditions using Earth parameter values. As any professional modeller knows, an important part of model validation is to use the model for a very different system. Mars would be perfect for such a validation as it is much different from Earth, and at the same time realistic as a water planet.
  • The venture would be part of a potentially rising field of PFD: Planetary Fluid Dynamics, which would be relevant for all the gas planets, which are mainly liquid.

At this page DHI is presenting some examples of simulations of water and waterbased events on Mars.

We are furthermore calling for cooperation partners in the space research community, who share our vision of water simulations being a good research tool.

Enjoy the simulations, see you in space.

Best Regards

Hørsholm, 23/12/2004

Karl Iver Dahl-Madsen

Animations:
Wind driven current (9 Mb)
Evaporation (20 Mb)
Round flight (18 Mb)

See also the Mars General Circulation Modeling Group