Predicting Variation in Daily Martian Atmospheric Temperature Using Machine Learning Techniques.
Predicting Variation in Daily Martian Atmospheric Temperature Using Machine Learning Techniques.
Abstract
According to research and explorations other six models used in this work with
conducted on mars. It was believed that the scores as follows: RMSE=1.5525,
planet once supported life. This resulted MSE=2.4105, MAE=1.1939 and
from some evidence indicating the presence R2=0.8283. Finally, the scores obtained
of water and a thick warm atmosphere on were visualised.
mars in the past. Due to this, man became
curious to explore the planet as the red Keywords: Mars, space exploration,
planet is believed to be similar to earth. Models, Python, NASA, EMIRS, EMM,
Many technological tools have evolved evaluation, pre-processing .
with advancements in science and
technology, making the entire exploration Introduction:
mission easy. Machine learning standout to Scientists oldest guess is that life existed on
be an essential technical tool today that is in this planet because of its nature resembling
use for mars exploration. Although the field Earth (Chang K., 2013). In a quest for
is new, little work has been done in knowledge, mankind has used diverse space
exploring mars' weather patterns for exploration technology to conduct research
possible habitation of life. This work relied on other planets to determine the presence
on the strength of machine learning or otherwise of life. To this exploration,
techniques to analyse the mars data planet mars are deemed to be a planet that
obtained from the EMM EMIRS instrument has potential life. Planet mars can in fact
database. In this work, various techniques viewed directly from the earth as it is
such as exploration, pre-processing, model colored red hence being referred to as the
development, and evaluations were Red Planet (Charles et al. al 2022). The
performed on the dataset to predict the phenomenon which makes Mars an
variation in daily atmospheric temperatures appearance of reddish hue is due to the
of mars present within the dataset. Seven existence of oxidized iron on the surface of
machine learning models were developed in the planet. However, current programs like
this work: Random Forest, Linear sending rovers to mars and getting the data
regression, SVM, ANN, CNN, Lasso about the Martian weather are effective but
Regression and Decision tree. The one of the most important factors – variable
developed models were subjected to Martian weather – still has to be further
hyperparameters fine-tuning their investigated. The goal of this study is to
accuracies. Finally, each model was build a model that could forecast
evaluated using RMSE, MAE, and R2 value fluctuations in atmospheric temperature on
evaluation techniques. Following the Mars during a day. The model will be
evaluation, random forest outperformed all trained and the accuracy tested using data
used. All this contributes to existing data Mars were investigated by Kass et al.
available on Martian atmosphere implying (2020) with Mars Climate Sounder, while
that the results will play a significant role in Mars’ weather using ML models was
offering fresh insight on climate on the red examined by Ishaani and Puri (2021); the
planet. Research in the subject and best model was identified as LSTM.
conditions of the Martian climate has been Alejandro de C. G. et al. (2019) applied
a matter of interest to scientist and ANN in order to estimate the sol pressure
researchers for several decades now. Mars and air temperature on Mars per hour with
is exceptional in that it provides vary great accuracy. They include Charalambous
climate and climate is important for manned et al. (2021) and Olsen et al. (2021), who
and robotic missions that may occur in the researched seismic and geophysical activity
planet’s future as well as to examine for any towards assessment of environmental
effects. Mars like other planets has different information on Mars. Also, P.N. Timothy
kinds of weather and one of it is diurnal (2022) pointed the significance of the ML in
variation of temperature. This variation, Martian science and called for data to be
which happens over a day, is an important driven. However, the review finds some of
part of weather on Mars and could give these questions still remaining unanswered
valuable information about the forces that including the need to develop advanced
drive this planet’s weather. For these models of weather prediction on Mars. This
insights, the variations have been provided paper concludes that more research and the
by means of machine learning techniques. use of Ml are needed to enhance awareness
This can be realised through the generation and readiness for future Mars landings. To
of models. achieve this goal, this research uses several
Even though much has been written about machine learning algorithms to make
the Martian climate and research has gone predictions of the atmospheric conditions
far in identifying this variation in daily on Mars especially atmospheric
atmospheric temperature the current models temperature. These include: Random
are not precise enough. The current models Forest: A technique that builds a set of
used in the prediction of weather on Mars decision trees and makes use of them to
are from empirical correlations, and are make the class/label predictions for
dependent on limited data (Ishaani P. and classification and numerical values for
Puri V. 2021; Ali M 2021). Therefore, these regression. Specially to deal with the
models lack the sophistication and problem of data imbalance, it works as
versatility needed to describe how multiple policies and make predictions by
atmospheric parameters are interconnected calculating the mode of each tree for
and how they affect the surface of a planet. classification and mean for regression.
Lasso Regression: A regularization
Literature review: technique that put a penalty on the model
This article focuses on the literature review parameters, collapsing regression
of utilizing machine learning (ML) for the coefficients for certain variables towards
prediction of weather on Mars by zero, and therefore, selects the most
highlighting the ML application’s extent significant predictors. Decision Tree: Tree-
because of the exhaustive Martian weather based structures, where data is modelled by
conditions and the consequences it will nodes and involves the impactful
have on future Martian missions. Scientists correlation of features and target variables.
have rampantly employed ML in areas of It is easily understandable and applicable
weather, Bellutta (2017) independently for interval or ratio level and nominal or
implemented ANN in defining the opacity ordinal data.
of Martian atmosphere. Gravity waves on
Models Deployment:
Seven machine learning models were
deployed: Linear Regression, Random
Forest, Decision Tree, Artificial Neural
Networks, Lasso, Convolutional Neural
Network (CNN), and Support Vector
Machine (SVM). These models were Fig. 19a: Atmospheric Temperature for
trained and tested using an 80/20 data split 5th July 2021 (Bar chart)
to identify the best-performing model.
Data Splitting:
The dataset was divided into an 80%
training set and a 20% testing set using
Python’s train_test_split function from the
sklearn library. This step ensures that the
models are trained and validated
effectively.
Fig. 19c: Atmospheric Temperature for 5th July 2021 (Scatter plot)
Fig. 19d: Atmospheric Temperature for 20th July 2021 (Scatter plot)
Fig. 19f: Atmospheric Temperature for 30th July 2021 (Scatter plot)
Fig. 19g: Atmospheric Temperature for 15th July 2021 (Scatter plot)
Fig. 19h: Atmospheric Temperature for 27th July 2021 (Scatter plot)
The above results were obtained from presented by Dimitra A. et. al., 2023 and
taking 6 days (I.e. sols) within the dataset Michael D et. al, 2022.
and visualizing their atmospheric This variation in mars temperature are
temperatures. From the above figures 16a- largely sponsored by the amount of dust
16h, it can be clearly seen that there is a present in its
variation in the daily temperature value for atmosphere. According to Royal Belgian
mars. From the figures, it can be observed institute for space Aeronomy (2022),
that within a martian day, the temperature variation in day and night temperature of
seems to be lower at early hours and higher mars is mainly due to the weakness of
at late hours. Although some days greenhouse effect which contributes to the
experience higher temperature values early Martian soil storing very few amounts of
hours compare to late hours e.g 21st and 15th energy.
July 2021. This is a clearly indication of 4.2 Results obtained from Experiment
diurnal variation in temperature of mars as conducted for similarities among mars
temperatures
Fig. 20e: Relationship between AT, ST for CO2 and ST for H2O
Fig. 20f: Relationship between ST, ST for CO2 and ST for H2O
Table 1: Result after removal of outliers of used machine learning models without
The above table presents the results handling outliers present within the
obtained from development and evaluation dataset.
Fig. 21d: R2 Values for the 5 models with Due to this performance the 5 models were
high performance subject to hyper parameter fine tuning using
The high performance of Random Forest GridsearhCV (Joseph R., 2018) and the
can be clearly seen across all 4 figures. results obtained are presented in Table 4
below:
Fig. 22a: RMSE for the 5 models with high performance (After hyper parameter fine
tuning)
Fig. 22b: MSE for the 5 models with high performance (After hyper parameter fine
tuning)
Fig. 22c: MAE for the 5 models with high performance (After hyper parameter fine
tuning)
Fig. 22d: R2 Values for the 5 models with could have stemmed from over fitting, as
high performance (After hyper captured by inflated errors amounts
parameter fine tuning) (RMSE, MSE, MAE). However, I found
Table 4 and Figures 22a-22d illustrate the smaller error scores in the second
improved performance of the five models experiment when outliers were excluded,
after hyperparameter fine-tuning. Random which indicated better fit of the model to
Forest, the best-performing model, showed data. Hyperparameter tuning was done to
notable improvements in terms of MSE, further improve the performance of each
RMSE, and R2 scores. Compared to the model and Random Forest performed better
earlier results in Figures 21a-21b and Table than other models in the two experiments.
3, the new results in Figures 22a-22b and For the Random Forest classifier its R-
Table 4 demonstrated better accuracies. Squared scores were 83%, 82% along with
Specifically, the MSE of the Random Forest 82.5% in consecutive assessments which
model decreased by 0.0123, the RMSE make it quite reliable. This concurs with the
decreased by 0.0041, and the R2 score study made by Joanna W. (2022) in which
increased by 0.0008. These improvements Random Forest outperformed neural
indicate that the hyperparameter tuning networks and SVM algorithms in predicting
process was effective in optimizing the Mars weather. The present work differed
models' performance. from the prior research done by Ishaani &
Puri (2021), Ali M. (2021) and Alejandro
Critical Discussion Summary (2019) which relied on pressure and
In the present research, to model the daily temperature predictions using
Martian atmosphere temperature comparatively smaller datasets of REMS
fluctuations, the EMM EMIRS dataset was excluding EMIRS data but in this study,
analyzed employing seven machine daily temperature fluctuations has been
learning algorithms in two experiments. predicted using the dataset received from
While in the first experiment, models were EMIRS. ANN and CNN models that were
developed with outliers still in the dataset, used in the Martian weather forecasting
in the second experiment, the above defined showed poor results on this dataset which
outliers were removed from the dataset. The indicates that the variability of datasets
results obtained in the first experiment considerably influences the stability and
yielded higher R-squared values, which efficiency of the models.
The study also confirmed the daily Martian
temperature variation observed by Michael