During the northern spring (approximately Ls≈33°) in Martian Year 35, Mars experienced an unusual dust storm characterized by significantly increased dust in the northern troposphere. As observed by the Mars Climate Sounder (MCS), temperature significantly increases in the mid-latitude troposphere of both hemispheres and decreases in the northern mesosphere during the event. The temperature response simulated by the Martian General Circulation Model (GCM) agrees with the MCS observations. The radiative heating from dust is responsible for the increased temperature in the northern troposphere. In contrast, the dynamic heating/cooling contributes to the temperature variations in the southern troposphere and northern mesosphere. The increased dissipation of planetary waves enhances the residual meridional circulation and causes the temperature warming in the Southern Hemisphere. In addition, the enhanced meridional circulation related to this event leads to ~36% increase in water vapor transport from the Northern to the Southern Hemisphere as compared to the net interhemispheric transport over an entire Martian Year.

Insight and other observations of the Martian surface at different locations have recorded the diurnal variation in surface pressure (Ps) with two rapid fluctuations that occur at dawn and dusk (around LT0800 and LT2000). These short-period surface pressure perturbations at specific local times are typically observed near Martian equinox. Similar phase-locked surface pressure fluctuations over most areas of the middle and low latitudes are simulated by the Martian General Circulation Model at the Dynamic Meteorology Laboratory (LMD). This phenomenon is thus likely to be global rather than local. By reconstructing the surface pressure variation from the horizontal mass flux, the pressure fluctuations in a sol can be attributed to the diurnal variation in the horizontal wind divergence and convergence in the Martain tropical troposphere in the GCM simulations. The background diurnal variation in Ps is related to the diurnal migrating tidal wind, while the enhanced convergence due to the overlap of the 4-hour and 6-hour tides before LT0800 and LT2000 is responsible for the Ps peaks occurring at dawn and twilgith. Although the amplitudes of the 4-hour and 6-hour tides are smaller than those of diurnal tides, the phases of these tides remain similar in the Martain troposphere, which suggests that the convergences and divergences due to 4 h/6 h tidal winds at different altitudes are in phase and together create a mass flux comparable to that induced by diurnal/semidiurnal components and lead to rapid pressure fluctuations.