Magnetohydrodynamic Study of Mars’s Response to Short-term Solar Wind Dynamic Pressure Enhancements

Abstract As a weakly magnetized planet, Mars interacts directly with the highly variable solar wind, where small-scale and short-duration structures are ubiquitous. Among solar wind parameters, dynamic pressure, as the dominant external pressure, plays a key role in shaping the pressure level and structures in the downstream induced magnetosphere. In this study, a multispecies global magnetohydrodynamic model is used to investigate Mars’s response to a series of idealized solar wind dynamic pressure enhancements with varying durations and magnitudes, aiming to capture responses in different plasma regions and isolate the effects of dynamic pressure. For the subsolar region, the simulations reveal a sequence of response phases, each exhibiting distinct temporal characteristics. Beyond the subsolar region, the terminator ionosphere and global ion escape show prolonged disturbances. These results highlight the importance of short-term upstream variability in shaping both local and global features of the Martian plasma environment and provide context for interpreting spacecraft observations that sample only limited regions of the system.