IMD: A Dating Code to Facilitate the Study of Transient Phenomena on the Surface of Mars

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The proposal is for a tool that indicates the time on Mars, in Martian terms. The authors solve a problem that has been solved and invent a new convention where the existing convention performs satisfactorily.

1. The paper does not have a scientific aspect. Many science papers must solve the problem of timekeeping on Mars in order to do science—in these cases, it is a minor subtask rather than a paper. It is simply not the case that users of HiRise data only have access to terrestrial dates.

2. The problem solved is trivial. For the HiRise data used as an example, NASA's NAIF at JPL provides SPICE kernels that allow full time-keeping detail. Most researchers use Ls for most purposes and sol of year and Mars Year for others. LMD, NASA, and others provide web tools for calculations. At least NASA provides all the code necessary to implement their timekeeping.

3. The novel contribution, a Mars Julian Day, is not supported as useful. It is yet another timekeeping convention, but why should it be adopted? It does not help with seasonality any more than the Julian second provided by NASA. One could add the Martian date here, but see above.

4. The possible value of such a paper would be to present a compelling argument that would move everyone who was content with existing timekeeping systems to adopt this instead. That argument is not present. The best case for high usage is that some adopt this suggestion, resulting in even more ways to describe what time it is and making it harder to compare papers.

The authors should present and use this in a science paper if they so desire, but I would not recommend that they do so.

Author Response

We admit that we were puzzled by some of Rev1 statements. As the other reviewers, Rev1 recognized the main methodological nature of our work but we do not agree with him that a methodological work would not be a priori a valid scientific contribution. The other reviewers correctly noted that this is a methodological work applicable to different fields of research. Nevertheless, we have treasured Rev1 comments. They made us realize that , maybe,  our exposition was not completely effective. We have rephrased the introductory section by implementing a comparison between IMD dating and the other different solutions suggested by Rev1 in his point 2. We ourselves are users of the seasonal datum. If we wasted time implementing IMD dating, it is because its use is simple and universal. There is no need to change tools or convert parameters to compare data from different missions and different agencies. As for the suggestion to implement the IMD method directly in the research paper that applies it, it is obvious that doing so would not leave on the same paper the material and especially thematic space to contain the other (thematically different) research as well. That is why it should be presented as such, together with some illustrative application (as we did in section 3. “Products and application examples”) so that the researcher can decide whether it can be useful for her or his own research.
Finally, we would like to make some considerations about points 2 and 3 by Rev1 where he/she basically asserts that JPL and NASA products definitively settle the matter. On the substance, we repeat (as stated in our manuscript) that the (excellent) products cited by Rev1 are different and give different performance with respect to the one presented here and that the novelties introduced by our IMD calendar coud result really useful to better highlight some regularities and peculiarities of Martian phenomena. From a more general point of view, we would reverently note that Rev1 statements, focusing so sharply and definitively on two products coming from quite a homogeneous cultural background, could be read, though not intentionally, as not completely inclusive and correct.

Reviewer 2 Report

Authors present the dating method (including codes in 3 versions (Excel, Python,... ) to utilize various transient phenomena on the Martian surface. The study is well written and clearly presented. Despite this type of study targets a relatively limited scientific community it provides valuable information. Therefore, I recommend publication in the  current form.

Authors should consider to reformat the figures so that they are aligned with the text margin rather than shifted left. 

Author Response

We are pleased that the evaluation is totally positive. Rev2 rightly notes that this type of study targets a relatively limited scientific community. However, by offering this already developed tool even as a software, we hope to extend the interest to a wider segment of the scientific community so that any geo-science can be more easily applied to the study of the planet Mars. We strongly believe in this and thank  the reviewers who shared this vision with us.
We have considered Rev2 suggestion to reformat the figures so that they are aligned with the text margin. If the Editor agrees, we propose, however, to reduce the size where it should be needed for the layout. We have seen in other works that it was possible to publish images across the width of the page. In the new text, we have reduced them all to test  the other option, and for this purpose we have enlarged the text font on the graph scales. Fig. 2 explains our preference: side-by-side comparison of different images seems to us more effective than in two columns.

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript is about a simple calculating software that helps to oversee the context seasonal phase when a given image was recorded on Mars. The topic is small but important: to have a well established context information for any observation of the Marian surface (or its atmosphere). The result are relevant new products, even if methodological and not scientific, but might be worth to present for the community. The methods are understandable, the main aspects to improve the work is the better integration to the context: to see why is such date calculation is interesting and where could be applied in Mars research.

Please edit the physical location of formulae listed in the manusript, maybe the wrap of text could be improved.

Beside the term transient phenomena suggest to use “change monitoring” also, as transient used to be applied to somewhat unexpected event, while many of such events happens almost periodically according to the seasonal changes.

Specific comments:

14 line

“ but it is revealing itself”

modify to „ but it’s surface is revealing itself”

31

at “[Dundas et al., 2017; Motazedian, 2003]„

cite the recent overview also: Changela H. et al. 2021. Mars: New insights and unresolved questions. International Journal of Astrobiology 20, 394-426.

32

mention that such changing surface ice formation and later sublimation might be connected to ephemeral nighttime liquid water emergence on microscopic scale, citing: Pál B. et al. 2019. Global seasonal variations of the near-surface relative humidity levels on present-day Mars. Icarus 333, 481-495.

42

at “ Nardi and Piersanti, 2022; Diniega et al. 2010; Kossacki and Markiewicz, 2004”

yes, but there are further important seasonal processes in the circumpolar region with frosting/defrosting and albedo changes, cite: Cartwright S. 2023. Spatial and Temporal Variation of Mars South Polar Ice Composition From Spectral Endmember Classification of CRISM Mapping Data. Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets 128, article id. e2023JE008044

and Horvath A. et al. 2009. Analysis of Dark Albedo Features on a Southern Polar Dune Field of Mars. Astrobiology 9(1) p. 90-103.

46

„cycle similar to that”

suggest to modify to „cycle partly similar to that”

47

“is also enhanced due to the”

no, the opposite is the true: „is also damped due to the”

49

„Earth the four seasons”

modify to „Earth the four alternating seasons on opposite hemispheres”

63

„transition of water ongoing at our research institute.”

this is itnerestng, please cite some relevant references from the authors’ related works

67

at MCD please cite Read P.L. et al. 1997. A GCM climate database for mars: for mission planning and for scientific studies. Advances in Space Research, Volume 19, p. 1213-1222.

73

“to the elapsed arc”

did you mean „to the elapsed orbital arc”

181

“on the web published calendar”

provide url also

202

also mention mass movements and slied CO2 blocks in springtime, citing: Diniega S. et al. 2013. A new dry hypothesis for the formation of Martian linear gullies. Icarus, 225, 526-537

229

„Martian day (Md),”

mention also called „sol”

233 and figure 3

„blue lines.”

please not it is not visible in black and white pint, would be good to make visible too

Table 5

put a new column with data on „solar longitude”

The quaity of English is good.

Author Response

In the revised text we have implemented every request by Rev3 and for this reason we do not respond here point by point. In the Review Report table, the only mandatory change concerned the bibliography: We have implemented all the proposed bibliography. In some cases it was not done in the exact place indicated by Rev3 because we thought it would be useful to add some new information related to that specific reference (e.g., in paragraph 3. "Products and application examples"). All changes and additions are in red. Finally, we have modified the graphs by introducing dotted lines as requested in order to be readable also in black-and-white print.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I offer apologies that my colonialist support of available timekeeping mechanisms conflicted with the esteemed authors' proposal to change Martian timekeeping to be more in accordance with the desires of Europeans. Still, many papers have addressed timekeeping issues without the confusion that this would purportedly solve, and additional metrics for expressing time are not likely to reduce what confusion does exist. I am personally unconvinced of the perceived problem or the merits of the perceived solution.

As a wise correspondent recently wrote, "There is no need to change tools or convert parameters to compare data from different missions and different agencies." All such data are already time-tagged; arithmetic manipulations are already done to present the time in a relevant way. The proposal does not change that but does proliferate the number of timekeeping systems to compare, with unclear benefits.

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript was updated accordingly to the suggestion, and although no specific response letter has been provided, the track changes editing allows to follow the realized changes. The wrapping of formulae now looks OK, the “change monitoring” term was implemented, as well as further mentions of the solar longitude what provides an important link to the literature from other researchers, including an update off Table 5, what is really useful. The authors emphasized well in the revised version the problem of alternating seasons at the two hemispheres. Only two minor further changes are proposed below, so the referee suggests acceptance of the manuscript, and congratulates for the work of authors.

Specific comments:

57 line

“Nasa also offers”

capitalize NASA

228

„permafrost [Kosacki, 2004]”

Kossacki is written by double „ss”