Mars years, Earth dates and landscape-forming processes

Mars researchers introduced the numbering of Mars years (Clancy and colleagues, 2000) to make weather and climate features, such as dust storms and seasons, easier to compare and document from year to year. Mars Year 1 includes the great dust storm of 1956, and positive years encompass all space-age observations. The calendar’s starting point has no other special significance. Piqueux and colleagues (2015) clarified the numbering before the first year.