THE PEOPLE FACTOR - UNDERSTANDING MARS DATA OFTEN REQUIRES KNOWING THE PEOPLE BEHIND IT. We have interviewed many of them. Some are mentioned in this article, more are discussed in our Basic Report. While human error (we are being polite here) may explain the ludicrous pressures reported, there is also a possibility of deliberate disinformation. An example of such disinformation would be keeping the designer of the Vaisala sensor, Henriq Kahanpää of the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI), from being told about nearby heat sources and even the number of air access tubes and dust filters used in conjunction with his sensor. NASA used International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) as an excuse but if they didn't want to give design critical information to a foreigner they should have hired an American to build the sensor. That, of course, assumes that they were interested in learning the truth. The overall problems are discussed in Sections 2.2 to 2.4 of our report and in our PowerPoints.
Basic Report for MARS CORRECT: Critique of All NASA Mars Weather Data, With Emphasis on Pressure. Updated July 2, 2015.
Column P shows the ultraviolet radiation seen by MSL. All sols in MSL Year 1 have opacity listed as “sunny” which seems dubious. This appears to be true for MSL Year 2 also (at least up to Sol 1,065 on August 5, 2015). The international guidelines for UVI reporting established by the World Health Organization (WHO), has 11 numerical levels while only four levels are seen on the REMS reports (extreme was never seen). Low means low danger from the sun's UV rays for the average person, Moderate is moderate risk of harm from unprotected sun exposure, High means high risk of harm from unprotected sun exposure. Protection against skin and eye damage is needed, 8 to 10: Very High means that unprotected skin and eyes will be damaged and can burn quickly. During MSL Year 1 low UV is currently indicated for Sols 609, 619. During MSL Year 2 there was low UV on Sols 838, 839, 840, 841, 843,844, 800. 851, 853, 854, 855, 939, 1006, 1007, 1008, 1026 (1,021 was listed as low initially, then changed to high).
Figure 1 below - Changing Martian weather data from the REMS Team.. Figure 2 below shows a major change to Sol 370's pressure that was made by JPL after we published the fact that the MSL's pressure sensor could not measure over 1150 Pa (11.5 mbar).