Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Red planet heating up

One of the major topics we covered in green chemistry was the possibility of global warming. Global warming on earth is believed to be caused by fossil fuel emissions which release CO2 into the atmosphere and traps infrared radiation. What you may not know is that Earth's neighbor, Mars, is also experiencing a global warming of its own. It's predicted that Mars has "warmed by around 1 degree Fahrenheit from the 1970s to the 1990s". Evidence of this warming can be seen on Mars' southern polar ice cap which has been on a steady retreat. The cause of global warming on Mars is due an increase in dust storms caused by solar radiation. Global warming on mars may not be such a bad thing however. If humans are ever to inhabit the red planet, global warming needs to take place. As it is, temperatures on the red planet can drop to –140 °C (−220 °F), which is way to cold to support human life. Some people suggest that if we are ever to inhabit mars, human need to intentionally cause the green house effect on the planet.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/04/04/mars.climate.reut/index.html

1 comment:

Jason said...

When I looked up the information regarding global warming on Mars I got almost 90% sites that were published by either big oil or other global warming skeptics. So it appears that this information, though apparently true, is a key defense that others are using to say that global warming is natural. However, I still do not see how they can deny the overwhelming evidence of ice core samples and graphs like the Keeling curve. Anyway, that was interesting to hear about Mars heating up, I had no idea.