John Strickland analyzes the terrible media coverage of that recent report, and points out (as I did at the time) that Mars isn’t a closed system.
9 thoughts on “Terraforming Mars”
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John Strickland analyzes the terrible media coverage of that recent report, and points out (as I did at the time) that Mars isn’t a closed system.
Comments are closed.
You can’t terraform Mars by increasing the atmosphere of Mars.
All such ideas are based upon the pseudo science of the “greenhouse effect theory”
Which say that greenhouse gases cause 33 K to Earth’s average temperature, and that greenhouse gases could cause Earth to become like Venus. Or I suppose some imagine greenhouse gases could add say 100 K [or more] to Earth average temperature.
As some mentioned and I have mentioned one could increase the temperature of Mars atmosphere by drilling hole down into Mars surface- so that it is 100 Km deep- the air at bottom would be warm and have enough pressure. You also sky dive down the hole and with deep enough hole, one fly in high density air and low gravity of Mars.
But added atmosphere to Mars will make Mars effectively be more cold. Or lack of atmosphere of Mars makes the cold average air temperature not much of issue.
There is no temperature in space- as NASA says. Or the Earth thermosphere at 1000 C is not hot. Let’s get a reference, wiki:
“The highly diluted gas in this layer can reach 2,500 °C (4,530 °F) during the day. Even though the temperature is so high, one would not feel warm in the thermosphere, because it is so near vacuum that there is not enough contact with the few atoms of gas to transfer much heat.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermosphere
Of course, the Thermosphere is more of vacuum then Mars atmosphere. But less air density of Mars atmosphere will result in less heat loss from convection, and increasing the air density of mars will allow more cooling effect from the cold air.
Or the thin Mars atmosphere in terms of causing cooling, is not much different than if Mars were vacuum like the Moon. Or if one added atmosphere to the Moon so it equaled the amount of air in Earth’s thermosphere- it’s still not going to cool or warm regardless of temperature of gas.
But if add enough air to Mars so it has same pressure as at Mt Everest, that will have enough air density to cool or warm something. Or Mars will actually be cold.
So not against idea of making a big hole, but I think using water is better way to add pressure [and reduce radiation].
So if Musk wants to terraform Mars, then he needs to find lots of cheap water or he can dig a hole.
And may find lots of cheap water, if he digs a deep hole.
Except that, pumping water up tens of km is not cheap water at the surface. One wants water less than couple km deep and the shallower the better.
> Which say that greenhouse gases cause 33 K to Earth’s average temperature,
So, what is your explanation for why the Earth’s surface is 33 K (or more) warmer than a simple radiative balance calculation would indicate? I mean, we can measure the Earth’s albedo, we can measure the thermal emissivity of the Earth’s surface, and we know how much sunlight is hitting the Earth. Put all those together and assume no IR-activity of gases in the atmosphere and you get a result wildly at odds with reality.
“So, what is your explanation for why the Earth’s surface is 33 K (or more) warmer than a simple radiative balance calculation would indicate? I mean, we can measure the Earth’s albedo, we can measure the thermal emissivity of the Earth’s surface, and we know how much sunlight is hitting the Earth. Put all those together and assume no IR-activity of gases in the atmosphere and you get a result wildly at odds with reality.”
Well it claimed that 33 K from Greenhouse gases, is only claimed because, they could not think what else would cause warming.
But there lots of factors which cause warming.
I had people who claim that theory does not claim “all warming is due to greenhouse gases”. There papers which claim 50% of greenhouse effect warming could due to clouds, and clouds are droplets of water or particles of ice rather than gases.
But I will take a more radial claim and say the entire atmosphere does not cause 33 K- so including any affect of clouds, convectional heating and latent heat of water vapor which are not really radiant effects of greenhouse gases, but will include them as greenhouse gases of atmosphere. And don’t cause 33 K of warming.
Instead I would claim the ocean has significant warming effect or a transparent surface of liquid or solid can have a warming effect.
So it’s the transparency of earth’s ocean which is warming effect.
And I think if you put a ocean of water on Mars, this would increase the average temperature of Mars.
Though I don’t think it’s particularly important to increase Mars average global temperature- or it’s not why I think one should put a ocean on Mars, but I think it would increase the average temperature of Mars.
Perhaps I make it easier, one could cover Mars with greenhouses and you would increase the average temperature of Mars.
An actual greenhouse is not actually what is involved in the greenhouse effect- you simply blocking convection heat loss.
Solar ponds also block convectional heat loss- due to salt gradient inhibiting warmer water rising to the surface.
So instead of greenhouses one cover Mars with solar ponds, but in terms of global average temperature, I think Earth ocean works better than solar ponds.
Solar pond can make water 80 C, and can maintain this 80 C water all year long. And one could view that as better than ocean- as ocean don’t get this hot- and one could have metric that hotter is better.
But I would say ocean are better in sense that they absorb slightly more energy than a solar ponds- and in that sense are better.
But I will discuss why Earth’s average surface air temperature is 15 C.
First the obvious, Earth is not 15 C, rather what is 15 C is average the surface air temperature.
Earth’s surface is mostly ocean and all is at sea level. Earth would have a higher average surface temperature if all of surface was at or near sea level, but one could say the portion of surface not at or near sea level is rather insignificant in terms of total surface area. Or in terms of average temperature of Earth, one ignore higher elevation- not say you should ignore them, but you can ignore them. One also can ignore the very cold continent of Antarctica- which is very large land mass and is very cold- basically because the ocean surface area is big. But again can ignore Antarctica, but not saying you should ignore Antarctic- as it one reason Earth is so cold, or one reason we have been in Ice Age for millions of years.
But in terms of just Earth average temperature of about 15 C, one does not need the measure the temperature of Antarctica- because it’s too insignificant in terms of the entire surface area of Earth.
What is significant is the temperature of the tropical zone, which is about 40% of the surface area of Earth and about 80% of tropics is ocean area. And the average temperature of tropics is quite high- it’s yearly average is about 26 C. And 26 C or 79 F is warm and is within room temperature which humans like to keep the living space at. Or humans are a tropical creature and that is a tropical temperature- they run around without having clothes. And is general idea related to tropical island paradises.
And the other 60% of the planet has much lower temperature which when average gives an average temperature of 15 C.
The tropical ocean, not the entire tropics including land area, is the Earth’s heat engine- which a basic idea when studying global climate.
Less known is the average ocean surface temperature is about 17 C and average global land surface air temperature is about 10 C- and one can fairly say that the large continental land mass of Antarctica
does make a dent in average global land area’s average temperature- it is a bigger but still a small fraction of total land area. But if average land was 8 or 12 C, it doesn’t really change much average global temperature of 15 C. So more than century ago claiming Earth average temperature was about 15 C, was not wrong, and saying Earth average surface temperature is about 15 C is also not wrong. But in century of time, average land temperature has increase by about 1 C or more, but global temperature have had about .6 C increase, plus or minus .2 C.
Anyhow Ocean average surface temperature is about 17 C, but about 40% of ocean is in tropics which has average of about 26 C, and outside of tropics and ocean average is about 11 C [60% of ocean outside has average of about 11 C.
And if we weren’t in an Ice Age the 60% of ocean surface waters outside of tropics would much warmer than 11 C and have considerable larger efect in terms of warming the otherwise colder land area outside of the tropics. But with this 60% of ocean at average of about 11 C, it is warming the land areas.
It well known that the Gulf Stream keeps Europe much warming than it would be without the warmth of the Gulf Stream. And this is not limited to just Europe, though Europe might have largest effect which is usually regarded to be about 10 K increase in Europe’s average temperature.
And the UK has average year temperature of about 9.5 C:
http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/regions/united-kingdom
And Canada average temperature is about – 4 C:
http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/regions/canada
Or Canada not warmed as much by ocean as Europe is.
But I digress, Earth average air temperature is meeting of the warmest part of atmosphere and warmest part of ocean and land surfaces- a convergence of two heat gradients.
The ocean average temperature is 3.5 C and we in an Ice Age, because our oceans are cold. And what cools the ocean is the land surface of Earth. Or ocean surface warms land surface, in terms of lands average temperature. And hot or warm summer land temperatures do very little in terms of warming the ocean- or desert regions have wide swings in temperature and would have an even wider swing in temperature if the world didn’t have an average temperature of about 15 C- which caused by the higher ocean surface average temperature.
“I mean, we can measure the Earth’s albedo, we can measure the thermal emissivity of the Earth’s surface…”
We have done this with the Moon, the Moon reflects less sunlight and when sun is at zenith, the lunar surface is about 120 C.
And the Moon has very low average temperature.
Why?
The lunar surface doesn’t absorb much solar energy- the moon is covered with dust which acts as very good insulation.
And the moon has a slow rotation, so that by the time the sun sets, a surface which was 120 C is around 0 C and then has 2 weeks of night.
With Earth, we have 10 tonnes of atmosphere above each square meter of surface, and during the day this 10 tonnes of air warms up and in night this 10 tonnes of air cools down.
With the Moon about 10 cm deep of regolith is warmed, and meter of regolith is about 2 tons, so rough 200 kg per square meter regolith warms and cool in the 28 day lunar day.
If moon had 24 hour day, slightly less amount of regolith warms up but in 28 day period it absorbs, say 25 times more energy, and of course it would also emit more energy- because it’s warmer.
And this also applies to space rocks and with space rocks it matters how dust they are cover by- and whether bare rocks:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11214-016-0286-8
Of course Moon and space rocks don’t have atmosphere- and I am not arguing that atmosphere doesn’t increase Earth’s average temperature.
But Earth rotational speed also effects it’s average temperature- as does it’s axis tilt, etc.
My point the ocean adds considerable to Earth average global temperature. And if Earth had 1/2 as much atmosphere- 5 tonnes rather than 10 tons per square meter, it’s not clear to me whether Earth average temperature would higher or lower, though I tend to think lower- though land temperatures would be much warmer during the day.
The Tropopause is the lid on the convective greenhouse on Earth.
If we are going to talk terraforming lets terraform Australia. Not much of it is habitable by civilised beings and the rest is good for strip mining, storing nuclear waste and keeping the coasts apart.
“If we are going to talk terraforming lets terraform Australia. ”
I don’t know much about Australia, but it seems it has large amount of land area that doesn’t get much rain:
“According to the Bureau of Meteorology, 80% of the land has less than 600 mm (24 in) of rainfall per year and 50% has even less than 300 mm (12 in). As a whole, Australia has a very low annual average rainfall of 419 mm (16 in).”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Australia
Lacking rain could be good thing, but one needs to add water, so importing it cheaper would seem like a good thing.
Or Las Vegas was sleepy town before it got water [and electrical power]. So pick a dry spot which doesn’t have much cloudy weather or other bad weather, and import water to it.
Or something like the fiction of canals of Mars.
Related to this, is crazy idea of moving iceburg. One could give water other ways, but I like idea of moving iceburgs and have discussed idea [but not in regard to Australian use].
My general idea is to make ice resort or use large iceburgs as real estate. And this idea is general to create market for use of iceburgs by first selling iceburgs as “temporary” real estate. So this real estate might last a decade before it melts, and in this time period in uses it as tourist resort location.
So get huge chuck of ice or naturally calved iceburgs, and tow it.
And would use make/use a nuclear power tugs to tow it.
And once got a market for towed iceburgs, then iceburgs could delivered for water uses [globally].