KRC is a computer program designed to compute surface and subsurface temperatures for planets and satellites with or without modest atmospheres. A single KRC run can handle complex subsurface physical properties for a global set of latitudes at a full set of seasons, with enough depth to capture the annual thermal wave, and to compute seasonal atmosphere condensation mass. Initially developed for Mars at the dawn of space exploration, there are generalities that allow this code set to be used for any solid body with any spin vector, in any orbit (around any star), with or without an atmosphere. The code is largely in FORTRAN and has evolved over 50 years and has been used extensively by the planetary science community.
KRC was developed by Hugh Kieffer with NASA funding. The krc website is maintained by Arizona State University, the interactive interface is supported by a Caltech, JPL, Northern Arizona University consortium.
Part of this work was performed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology under a contract with NASA.
This work was supported for part by:
PDART grant #15-PDART15_2-0023
JPL Lew Allen Award grant #01STCR, Task R.18.022.087
the 2001 Mars Odyssey Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) project
Citation:
Improving Thermal Model Capability for the Planetary Science Community, S. Piqueux, C. S. Edwards, R. L. Fergason, J. Laura, A. Weintraub, P. R. Christensen, H. H. Kieffer, 49th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (2018), Abstract #1027
Website links: •http://krc.mars.asu.edu •http://davinci.asu.edu