Glaciation in the Late Noachian Icy Highlands: Ice accumulation, distribution, flow rates, basal melting, and top-down melting rates and patterns

摘要

Geological evidence for extensive non-polar ice deposits of Amazonian age indicates that the current cold and dry climate of Mars has persisted for several billion years. The geological record and climate history of the Noachian, the earliest period of Mars history, is less certain, but abundant evidence for fluvial channels (valley networks) and lacustrine environments (open-basin lakes) has been interpreted to represent warm and wet conditions, including rainfall and runoff. Alternatively, recent atmospheric modeling results predict a "cold and icy" Late Noachian Mars in which moderate atmospheric pressure accompanied by a full water cycle produce an atmosphere where temperature declines with elevation following an adiabatic lapse rate, in contrast to the current situation on Mars, where temperature is almost completely determined by latitude. These results are formulated in the Late Noachian Icy Highlands (LNIH) model, in which these cold and icy conditions lead to the preferential deposition of snow and ice at high elevations, such as the southern uplands. What is the fate of this snow and ice and the nature of glaciation in such an environment? What are the prospects of melting of these deposits contributing to the observed fluvial and lacustrine deposits?