Prospects for Mapping Temporal Height Variations of the Seasonal CO2 Snow/Ice Caps at the Martian Poles by Co-registration of MOLA Profiles

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a method using reprocessed MOLA laser altimeter data and co-registration techniques to accurately measure seasonal height variations of CO2 snow/ice caps at Mars' poles, achieving a precision of about 4.9 cm.

Contribution

It introduces a novel co-registration and correction approach for MOLA data to map seasonal polar ice height changes on Mars.

Findings

Height variation peak-to-peak is approximately 2 meters.

Achieved height change measurement precision of about 4.9 centimeters.

Detected a transient height accumulation of ~0.5 meters during southern spring.

Abstract

We investigate the feasibility and demonstrate the merits of using Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) profiles to retrieve seasonal height variations of CO2 snow/ice cap in Mars' polar areas by applying a co-registration strategy. We present a prototype analysis on the research region of [85.75{\deg}S, 86.25{\deg}S, 300{\deg}E, 330{\deg}E] that is located on the residual south polar cap. Our method comprises the recomputation of MOLA footprint coordinates with an updated Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) ephemeris and a revised Mars rotation model. The reprocessed MOLA dataset at the South Pole of Mars (poleward of 78{\deg}S) is then self-registered to form a coherent reference digital terrain model (DTM). We co-register segments of reprocessed MOLA profiles to the self-registered MOLA reference DTM to obtain the temporal height differences at either footprints or cross-overs. Subsequently, a two-step Regional Pseudo Cross-over Adjustment (RPCA) procedure is proposed and applied to post-correct the aforementioned temporal height differences for a temporal systematic bias and other residual errors. These pseudo cross-overs are formed by profile pairs that do not necessarily intersect, but are connected through the underlaying DTM. Finally, CO2 snow/ice temporal height variation is obtained by median-filtering those post-corrected temporal height differences. The precision of the derived height change time series is ~4.9 cm. The peak-to-peak height variation is estimated to be ~2 m. In addition, a pronounced "pit" (transient height accumulation) of ~0.5 m in magnitude centered at Ls=210{\deg} in southern spring is observed. The proposed method opens the possibility to map the seasonal CO2 snow/ice height variations at the entire North and South polar regions of Mars.