Mars The Dusty

Buzboy writes: "This could be the largest and longest-lasting dust storm on Mars in the past 25 years. The storm now covers the entire globe and has caused the temperatures to rise by 30 degrees C."

Runaway greenhouse possible?

[Anonymous Coward]

The boiling point for CO2 is -79C. Curent temperature of Mars is ~ -50C. (Storm has spread over the polar caps)

Re:30 degrees?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only 30 degrees?

Some Earth vegetation yearly goes through lows of -40 C (and F) or less and highs of 38 C (100 F) or more. An 80 degree C swing. Granted, not all individual plants survive the cold, but their seeds do and those grow the next warm cycle.

As for which are useful.. depends on your definition. For Mars, which plants (or other organisms) could grow there at all would be the concern.

take advantage of it!!

[CrudPuppy]

why not take advantage of this wonderful event
and use it to help the population problem in
southern california...

think about the similarities: it's getting hotter
on mars, so much junk in the air you can barely
see the sun, and no electricity!

the californians would never realize they were
no longer on earth!

*grin*

weather.

[Faux_Pseudo]

hidden in the links is a url for the current days weather for mars [asu.edu]. Liveing in San Diego I have no need for the weather at all (its the fucking same every day all year long to the point that the local weather men joke about job security while on the air) but knowing i can get daily reports about mars is kind of nice.

30 degrees?

[3-State Bit]

Damn, and here we were all ready to go and teraform it. What the heck kind of (useful!)vegetation survives that kind of climactic fluctuation?
~

Global torms on mars common

[Yazeran]

Actually dust storms that cover the intire planet of Mars is not uncommon, as the first american probe orbited mars, they at first couldn't get any images of the surface, as a large storm covered the surface. Only the volcanic peaks (olympos mons and the three other volcanoes on the 'Tharis ridge' vas visible due to their huge height. That storm lasted several months if i recall correctly.

This storm is just a large one. It'll most likely be over in 2 months anyway.

As to the melting point of CO2, one has to remeember that CO2 doesent melt, it sublimates, as the pressure on mars (and earth) is lower than the critical pressure for liquid CO2. Heating the mars atmosphrere do vaporise more CO2, but it is doubtfull if much more than usual during the southern summer is vaporized.
atmospheric pressure on mars rises during the summer on the southern hemisphere, as most of the CO2 is bound here and sublimation of CO2 increases the pressure. Similarly in southeren winter, the CO2 precipitates out.

Yours Yazeran

Plan: To go to Mars one day with a hammer.

Breaking News

[JBowz15]

In related news, NASA has stated that Venus is hot, Jupiter is big, and has asked the U.S.A.'s newly tested elite anti-missile system not shoot down the space shuttle upon reentry.