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Carbon’s role in atmosphere formation


knocker

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  • Location: Camborne
  • Location: Camborne

    A new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that the way carbon moves from within a planet to the surface plays a big role in the evolution of a planet's atmosphere. Mars, which likely released much of its carbon as methane, might have been warm enough to support liquid water.

    http://news.brown.edu/pressreleases/2013/04/magma

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  • Location: Kingdom of Fife: 56.2º N, 3.2º W
  • Location: Kingdom of Fife: 56.2º N, 3.2º W

    It's not so much whether methane could warm Mars, more that a sufficient atmospheric pressure and temperature could develop to keep surface water at a liquid phase. Simple warming alone would just evaporate (more accurately: sublime) any locked up permafrost.

    It's becoming fairly clear that Mars did have a heavy atmosphere and a warmer temperature at some stage(s) that did allow surface water. Not so sure that it could return to those days with the resources available.

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