CaltechAUTHORS
Published October 2025 | Version Published
Journal Article Embargoed

Annual Evolution of Water Vapor at Jezero Crater Based on Observations and Modeling

Creators

  • 1. ROR icon Finnish Meteorological Institute
  • 2. ROR icon University of Helsinki
  • 3. ROR icon University of the Basque Country
  • 4. ROR icon Paris Observatory
  • 5. ROR icon Centro de Astrobiología
  • 6. ROR icon Goddard Space Flight Center
  • 7. ROR icon Space Science Institute
  • 8. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 9. ROR icon Jet Propulsion Lab

Abstract

Annual and diurnal water cycles at Jezero crater on Mars are analyzed during the first 1,000 sols of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover's mission (Ls 44° MY36–163° MY37). The primary data source is the MEDA-HS relative humidity (RH) sensor, which operates at 1.5 m above the surface. Nocturnal RH observations are used to calibrate an adsorptive single column model (SCM), which then reconstructs the full diurnal water vapor cycle and its vertical distribution. Our modeling work focuses on locations where the rover remained stationary or within a small area for an extended period of time, thus ensuring stable soil properties and allowing for more robust averaging over multiple sols. The SCM effectively reproduces the observation-based nighttime water vapor amounts at the modeled locations. The precipitable water columns (PWC) estimated by the SCM, when adjusted to the MEDA near-surface observations, align in 85% of tested cases within 10% of the satellite data. Both SCM simulations and MEDA-HS observations produce an annual water vapor peak around Ls 150°–Ls 160°, consistent with results from a Martian global climate model for the Jezero region. Additionally, local topography appears to influence near-surface water vapor levels, suggesting that terrain effects should be considered when modeling the diurnal cycle in heterogeneous landscapes.

Copyright and License

© 2025. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.

Acknowledgement

Ricardo Hueso, Asier Munguira and Agustín Sánchez-Lavega were supported by Grant PID2023-149055NB-C31 funded by MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and FEDER, UE, and by Grupos de Investigacion del Gobierno Vasco IT-1366-19. Asier Munguira is also supported by the Grant PRE2020-092562 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by “ESF Investing in your future.” Maria-Paz Zorzano was supported by Grant PID2022-140180OB-C21 funded by MCIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/FEDER, UE. The authors thank the M2020 rover and MEDA instrument teams for their work and successful mission. The authors also thank the two anonymous reviewers, whose comments greatly improved the manuscript.

Data Availability

MEDA instrument observation data used for this work is available in NASA Planetary Data System (PDS) Atmospheres node (Rodriguez-Manfredi & de la Torre Juarez, 2021). Processed MEDA-ATS 1.5 m temperature data is available in the repository (Hueso et al., 2024). Derived data and SCM data are available in Finnish Meteorological Institute repository archive (Polkko et al., 2025).

Supplemental Material

Supporting Information S1 (PDF)

Files

Embargoed

The files will be made publicly available on April 23, 2026.

Additional details

Related works

Is supplemented by
Dataset: 10.17189/1522849 (DOI)
Dataset: 10.5281/zenodo.11198655 (DOI)
Dataset: 10.57707/fmi-b2share.95f111c9279b4c259dbc86adc69dc836 (DOI)

Funding

Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades
PID2023-149055NB-C31
Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades
PRE2020-092562
Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades
PID2022-140180OB-C21

Dates

Submitted
2025-04-04
Accepted
2025-10-08
Available
2025-10-23
Version of record online

Caltech Custom Metadata

Caltech groups
Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences (GPS)
Publication Status
Published