Mars climate trends simulated by M-GITM during MY24, 25, and 3

The Mars Global Ionosphere-Thermosphere Model (M-GITM) (Bougher et al., 2015) has typically been used to perform shorter term simulations (~2 hours - 1 month) of the Mars upper atmosphere. Given that recent studies have demonstrated broad understanding of the longer term variability of the upper atmosphere (e.g. Jain et al., 2023, Gonzalez-Galindo et al., 2015), we have been working on using the model to perform annual simulations in order to 1) see how the model reproduces long-term variability and 2) provide a set of upper atmospheric data products for use in an updated version of Mars-GRAM (Justh et al., 2011). We present results from this suite of 4 annual simulations that span a range of solar and dust conditions and identify conditions and regions when the model compares well with previous studies and observations as well as conditions when the model demonstrates missing physics. For example, M-GITM is able to capture observed average long term seasonal variability in the middle and upper thermopshere. However, the model struggles to capture similar trends near the mesopause.