Relationship Between the Ozone and Water Vapor Columns on Mars as Observed by SPICAM and Calculated by a Global Climate Model

Ozone (O 3 ) in the atmosphere of Mars is produced following the photolysis of CO 2 and is readily destroyed by the hydrogen radicals (HO x ) released by the photolysis and oxidation of water vapor. As a result, an anti‐correlation between ozone and water vapor is expected. We describe here the O 3 ‐H 2 O relationship derived from 4 Martian years of simultaneous observations by the SPICAM spectrometer onboard the Mars Express spacecraft. A distinct anti‐correlation is found at high latitudes, where the O 3 column varies roughly with the −0.6 power of the H 2 O column. The O 3 and H 2 O columns are uncorrelated at low latitudes. To evaluate our quantitative understanding of the Martian photochemistry, the observed O 3 ‐H 2 O relationship is then compared to that predicted by a global climate model with photochemistry. For identical model and observed abundances of H 2 O, the model underpredicts observed ozone by about a factor of 2 relative to SPICAM when using the currently recommended gas‐phase chemistry. Sensitivity studies employing low‐temperature CO 2 absorption cross sections, or adjusted kinetics rates, do not solve this bias. Taking into account potential heterogeneous processes of HO x loss on clouds leads to a significant improvement, but only at high northern latitudes. More broadly, the modeled ozone deficits suggest that the HO x ‐catalyzed photochemistry is too efficient in our simulations. This problem is consistent with the long‐standing underestimation of CO in Mars photochemical models, and may be related to similar difficulties in modeling O 3 and HO x in the Earth's upper stratosphere and mesosphere.