Solar radiation incident on Mars and the outer planets: Latitudinal,seasonal, and atmospheric effects

Calculations of the daily solar radiation incident at the tops of the atmospheres of Mars and the outer planets and its variability with latitude and season are presented in a series of figures and tables similar to those for Earth in The Smithsonian Meteorological Tables. The changes in the latitudinal and seasonal distributions of daily surface insolation during the great Martian dust storm of 1971 (when Martian atmospheric optical depth increased from about τ = 0.1 to 2.0 were significant and dramatically illustrate the effect of atmospheric aerosols on surface insolation; i.e., the mean annual daily insolation at the poles decreased by more than a factor of 100 as τ increased from 0.1 to 2.0.