The martian mesosphere as revealed by CO2 cloud observations and General Circulation Modeling

► The LMD-MGCM predicts minimum temperature at the spatial and temporal location of observed CO2 clouds. ► The latitudinal confinement of the daytime equatorial clouds is due to the diurnal tide. ► The longitudinal confinement of the daytime equatorial clouds is attributed to non-migrating tides. ► Temperatures predicted by the LMD-MGCM at the location of the mid-latitude clouds are too high. ► Zonal winds predicted by the LMD-MGCM are in good agreement with those inferred from clouds observations.