Global Warming on Mars?
Mars southern polar ice cap has been showing signs of shrinkage with some scientists estimating that the entire cap could be melted within a few thousand years. When the ice caps melt and shrink, as they do every Martian summer, they release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The amount of CO2 released if the entire southern caps melted would be sufficient enough to provide an atmosphere 1/10 the density of ours. This is big news to all the terraforming junkies out there as this increase in atmospheric density would potentially allow people to bound across the surface of Mars with an O2 mask and big puffy jackets.
Full story
current science news posted by Greg at 12/09/2001 12:18:00 PM
Scientists
& Engineers for America
RSS
