Corrections Required for Ashima Mars Weather Reports (Part 1)
Sol 15 (August 22, 2012) to Sol 111 (November 29, 2012). This page updated on May 12, 2013.
Ashima Research claims to take its Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) weather data from the Remote Environment Monitoring Station (REMS) Team at the Cento de Astrobiologia in Madrid, Spain. There was one exception noted as I tracked both of their sets of data since they began to be posted on August 22, 2012. On November 20, 2012 (Sol 104) the data appeared on Ashima’s site before it was posted by the REMS Team. All of the obvious mistakes committed by the REMS Team were repeated on the Ashima site except for one major one. Ashima went back and altered the REMS Team reports for September 1 through September 5, 2012. The REMS Team reported pressures from 742 to 747 hPa (equivalent to the pressure in Vail, Colorado). Ashima moved the decimal place and reported pressures for then between 7.42 and 7.47 hPa, implying that the REMS Team had confused Hpa and Pa units. Each image below hold the data for six sols, except where noted to show (frequent) Sol numbering problems that began in the previous series. Nonsense reports resumed on 3/23/2013 still with wrong sunrise and sunset times published by Ashima, the same exact wind speed and direction as was shown on all reports since landing (2 m/s from the East), and no relative humidity. At best these reports may offer correct temperatures but ALL other data is completely unreliable. FLASH! ON MAY 11, 2013 ASHIMA RESEARCH CAVES IN TO AGREE WITH OUR DAYLIGHT CALCULATIONS, AND APPARENTLY WITH OUR DEMAND THAT WIND BE LISTED AS N/A RATHER THAN 2 M/S FROM THE EAST. ALL THEIR DAYLIGHT CALCULATIONS REVISED TO BE WITH A MINUTE OR TWO OF OUR MATH!