Complex Brines and Their Implications for Habitability.

There is evidence that life on Earth originated in cold saline waters around scorching hydrothermal vents, and that similar conditions might exist or have existed on Mars, Europa, Ganymede, Enceladus, and other worlds. Could potentially habitable complex brines with extremely low freezing temperatures exist in the shallow subsurface of these frigid worlds? Earth, Mars, and carbonaceous chondrites have similar bulk elemental abundances, but while the Earth is depleted in the most volatile elements, the Icy Worlds of the outer solar system are expected to be rich in them. The cooling of ionic solutions containing substances that likely exist in the Icy Worlds could form complex brines with the lowest eutectic temperature possible for the compounds available in them. Indeed, here, we show observational and theoretical evidence that even elements present in trace amounts in nature are concentrated by freeze-thaw cycles, and therefore contribute significantly to the formation of brine reservoirs that remain liquid throughout the year in some of the coldest places on Earth. This is interesting because the eutectic temperature of water-ammonia solutions can be as low as ~160 K, and significant fractions of the mass of the Icy Worlds are estimated to be water substance and ammonia. Thus, briny solutions with eutectic temperature of at least ~160 K could have formed where, historically, temperature have oscillated above and below ~160 K. We conclude that complex brines must exist in the shallow subsurface of Mars and the Icy Worlds, and that liquid saline water should be present where ice has existed, the temperature is above ~160 K, and evaporation and sublimation have been inhibited.

The Impact of a Severe Drought on Dust Lifting in California's Owens Lake Area.

Mineral dust aerosols are responsible for some of the largest sources of uncertainties in our current understanding of climate change. Here we show that a severe drought is having a significant impact in one of largest sources of mineral dust aerosols of the U.S., the Owens Lake area in California's southwest. Measurements of aerosol concentration (PM2.5 particle matter) in the Owens Lake salty playa show that the annual mean concentration of PM2.5 aerosol has been increasing steadily since the beginning of the current drought, with periods of high aerosol concentration increasing from 4 months in 2013 to 9 months in 2015. Interestingly, the PM2.5 aerosol concentration usually increases abruptly from less than ~0.05 mg/m3 to ~0.25 mg/m3. This occurs when saltation events break salt crusts produced by the efflorescence of brine in the salty playa. The brine is produced by either rainfall or runoff water. Based on this observation, we hypothesize that there is an upper limit of ~0.25 mg/m3 in the annual mean PM2.5 aerosols concentration in the Owens Lake basin that might limit the impact of mineral dust aerosols on climate. Indeed, the upper annual limit of ~0.25 mg/m3 has been nearly reached during the current drought.

Planetary Protection and Mars Special Regions--A Suggestion for Updating the Definition.

We highlight the role of COSPAR and the scientific community in defining and updating the framework of planetary protection. Specifically, we focus on Mars "Special Regions," areas where strict planetary protection measures have to be applied before a spacecraft can explore them, given the existence of environmental conditions that may be conducive to terrestrial microbial growth. We outline the history of the concept of Special Regions and inform on recent developments regarding the COSPAR policy, namely, the MEPAG SR-SAG2 review and the Academies and ESF joint committee report on Mars Special Regions. We present some new issues that necessitate the update of the current policy and provide suggestions for new definitions of Special Regions. We conclude with the current major scientific questions that remain unanswered regarding Mars Special Regions.

Experimental evidence for the formation of liquid saline water on Mars.

Evidence for deliquescence of perchlorate salts has been discovered in the Martian polar region while possible brine flows have been observed in the equatorial region. This appears to contradict the idea that bulk deliquescence is too slow to occur during the short periods of the Martian diurnal cycle during which conditions are favorable for it. We conduct laboratory experiments to study the formation of liquid brines at Mars environmental conditions. We find that when water vapor is the only source of water, bulk deliquescence of perchlorates is not rapid enough to occur during the short periods of the day during which the temperature is above the salts' eutectic value, and the humidity is above the salts' deliquescence value. However, when the salts are in contact with water ice, liquid brine forms in minutes, indicating that aqueous solutions could form temporarily where salts and ice coexist on the Martian surface and in the shallow subsurface. KEY POINTS: The formation of brines at Martian conditions was studied experimentallyBulk deliquescence from water vapor is too slow to occur diurnally on MarsBrines form in minutes when salts are placed in direct contact with ice.

Impact of deforestation in the Amazon basin on cloud climatology.

Shallow clouds are prone to appear over deforested surfaces whereas deep clouds, much less frequent than shallow clouds, favor forested surfaces. Simultaneous atmospheric soundings at forest and pasture sites during the Rondonian Boundary Layer Experiment (RBLE-3) elucidate the physical mechanisms responsible for the observed correlation between clouds and land cover. We demonstrate that the atmospheric boundary layer over the forested areas is more unstable and characterized by larger values of the convective available potential energy (CAPE) due to greater humidity than that which is found over the deforested area. The shallow convection over the deforested areas is relatively more active than the deep convection over the forested areas. This greater activity results from a stronger lifting mechanism caused by mesoscale circulations driven by deforestation-induced heterogeneities in land cover.

Electrostatics in wind-blown sand.

Wind-blown sand, or "saltation," is an important geological process, and the primary source of atmospheric mineral dust aerosols. Significant discrepancies exist between classical saltation theory and measurements. We show here that these discrepancies can be resolved by the inclusion of sand electrification in a physically based saltation model. Indeed, we find that electric forces enhance the concentration of saltating particles and cause them to travel closer to the surface, in agreement with measurements. Our results thus indicate that sand electrification plays an important role in saltation.

Oxidant enhancement in martian dust devils and storms: implications for life and habitability.

We investigate a new mechanism for producing oxidants, especially hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), on Mars. Large-scale electrostatic fields generated by charged sand and dust in the martian dust devils and storms, as well as during normal saltation, can induce chemical changes near and above the surface of Mars. The most dramatic effect is found in the production of H2O2 whose atmospheric abundance in the "vapor" phase can exceed 200 times that produced by photochemistry alone. With large electric fields, H2O2 abundance gets large enough for condensation to occur, followed by precipitation out of the atmosphere. Large quantities of H2O2 would then be adsorbed into the regolith, either as solid H2O2 "dust" or as re-evaporated vapor if the solid does not survive as it diffuses from its production region close to the surface. We suggest that this H2O2, or another superoxide processed from it in the surface, may be responsible for scavenging organic material from Mars. The presence of H2O2 in the surface could also accelerate the loss of methane from the atmosphere, thus requiring a larger source for maintaining a steady-state abundance of methane on Mars. The surface oxidants, together with storm electric fields and the harmful ultraviolet radiation that readily passes through the thin martian atmosphere, are likely to render the surface of Mars inhospitable to life as we know it.

Oxidant enhancement in martian dust devils and storms: storm electric fields and electron dissociative attachment.

Laboratory studies, numerical simulations, and desert field tests indicate that aeolian dust transport can generate atmospheric electricity via contact electrification or "triboelectricity." In convective structures such as dust devils and dust storms, grain stratification leads to macroscopic charge separations and gives rise to an overall electric dipole moment in the aeolian feature, similar in nature to the dipolar electric field generated in terrestrial thunderstorms. Previous numerical simulations indicate that these storm electric fields on Mars can approach the ambient breakdown field strength of approximately 25 kV/m. In terrestrial dust phenomena, potentials ranging from approximately 20 to 160 kV/m have been directly measured. The large electrostatic fields predicted in martian dust devils and storms can energize electrons in the low pressure martian atmosphere to values exceeding the electron dissociative attachment energy of both CO2 and H2O, which results in the formation of the new chemical products CO/O- and OH/H-, respectively. Using a collisional plasma physics model, we present calculations of the CO/O- and OH/H- reaction and production rates. We demonstrate that these rates vary geometrically with the ambient electric field, with substantial production of dissociative products when fields approach the breakdown value of approximately 25 kV/m. The dissociation of H2O into OH/H- provides a key ingredient for the generation of oxidants; thus electrically charged dust may significantly impact the habitability of Mars.