Dattaraj B. Dhuri

Dattaraj B. Dhuri, Dimitra Atri, Ahmed AlHantoobi

Proton auroras are widely observed on the dayside of Mars, identified as a significant intensity enhancement in the hydrogen Lyman alpha (121.6 nm) emission between 110 - 150 km altitudes. Solar wind protons penetrating as energetic neutral atoms into Mars thermosphere are thought to be primarily responsible for these auroras. Recent observations of spatially localized (patchy) proton auroras suggest a possible direct deposition of protons into Mars atmosphere during unstable solar wind conditions. Improving our understanding of proton auroras is therefore important for characterizing the solar wind interaction with Mars atmosphere. Here, we develop a first purely data-driven model of proton auroras using Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) in-situ observations and limb scans of Ly-alpha emissions between 2014 - 2022. We train an artificial neural network (ANN) that reproduces individual Lyman alpha intensities and relative Lyman alpha peak intensity enhancements with a Pearson correlation of 0.94 and 0.60 respectively for the test data, along with a faithful reconstruction of the shape of the observed Lyman alpha emission altitude profiles. By performing a SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) analysis, we find that solar zenith angle, solar longitude, CO2 atmosphere variability, solar wind speed and temperature are the most important features for the modeled Lyman alpha peak intensity enhancements. Additionally, we find that the modeled peak intensity enhancements are high for early local time hours, particularly near polar latitudes, as well as weaker induced magnetic fields. Through SHAP analysis, we also identify the influence of biases in the training data and interdependecies between the measurements used for the modeling, and an improvement on those aspects can significantly improve the performance and applicability of the ANN model.

Nour Abdelmoneim, Dattaraj B. Dhuri, Dimitra Atri et al.

For the past several decades, numerous attempts have been made to model the climate of Mars with extensive studies focusing on the planet's dynamics and the understanding of its climate. While physical modeling and data assimilation approaches have made significant progress, uncertainties persist in comprehensively capturing and modeling the complexities of Martian climate. In this work, we propose a novel approach to Martian climate modeling by leveraging machine learning techniques that have shown remarkable success in Earth climate modeling. Our study presents a deep neural network designed to accurately model relative humidity in Gale Crater, as measured by NASA's Mars Science Laboratory ``Curiosity'' rover. By utilizing simulated meteorological variables produced by the Mars Planetary Climate Model, a robust Global Circulation Model, our model accurately predicts relative humidity with a mean error of 3\% and an $R^2$ score of 0.92. Furthermore, we present an approach to predict quantile ranges of relative humidity, catering to applications that require a range of values. To address the challenge of interpretability associated with machine learning models, we utilize an interpretable model architecture and conduct an in-depth analysis of its internal mechanisms and decision making processes. We find that our neural network can effectively model relative humidity at Gale crater using a few meteorological variables, with the monthly mean surface H$_2$O layer, planetary boundary layer height, convective wind speed, and solar zenith angle being the primary contributors to the model predictions. In addition to providing a fast and efficient method to modeling climate variables on Mars, this modeling approach can also be used to expand on current datasets by filling spatial and temporal gaps in observations.