Physics Commons^™

Dust Devil Populations And Statistics, Ralph D. Lorenz, Brian K. Jackson

Physics Faculty Publications and Presentations

The highly-skewed diameter and pressure drop distributions of dust devils on Earth and Mars are noted, and challenges of presenting and comparing different types of observations are discussed. The widely- held view that Martian dust devils are larger than Earth's is critically-assessed: the question is confounded somewhat by different observation techniques, but some indication of a ~3x larger population on Mars is determined. The largest and most intense (in a relative pressure sense) devils recorded are on Mars, although the largest reported number density is on Earth. The difficulties of concepts used in the literature of 'average' diameter, pressure cross …