Mars
March 1st, 2004
Mars atmosphere has life-killing chemical The Salt Lake Tribune
An astronomy team led by a Boulder-Colo.-based Space Science Institute researcher has detected hydrogen peroxide for the first time in the martian atmosphere. Antiseptic and life-killing, the chemical helps explain why the martian atmosphere and surface are void of life. Acting as a catalyst, it drives the abundance of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide in the martian atmosphere. Without hydrogen peroxide, molecular oxygen — now a tiny sliver — would soar to compose 10 percent of the martian atmosphere.
January 30th, 2004
Greening the Red Planet Astrobiology Magazine
Greenhouse gases might one day be used to warm the cold surface of Mars, and make the planet habitable for humans.
January 13th, 2004
Human life on Mars plan The Sun
Inhabitants would need to take their own food and water, at least at first. But while the Moon is a barren wasteland, water could be recycled and more food grown in greenhouses lit by nuclear power. Once a base is established, future generations might live in the Moon
December 23rd, 2003
Diesel soot major global warming factor
NASA scientists say soot, mostly from diesel engines, is causing as much as a quarter of all observed global warming by reducing the ability of snow and ice to reflect sunlight. Their findings on how soot affects reflective ability, known as albedo, raise new questions about human-caused climate change from the Arctic to the Alps.
December 22nd, 2003
Black soot and snow: A warmer combination EurekaAlert!
New research from NASA scientists suggests emissions of black soot alter the way sunlight reflects off snow. According to a computer simulation, black soot may be responsible for 25 percent of observed global warming over the past century. Soot in the higher latitudes of the Earth, where ice is more common, absorbs more of the sun’s energy and warmth than an icy, white background. Dark-colored black carbon, or soot, absorbs sunlight, while lighter colored ice reflects sunlight. Soot in areas with snow and ice may play an important role in climate change.
December 18th, 2003
Mars in an ice age: The red planet before the present interglacial Nature
Of all Solar System planets, Mars has the climate most like that of Earth, both sensitive to small changes in orbital parameters. So the discovery of recent gullies, buried ice and possible snowpack on Mars has stimulated interest among both terrestrial and planetary scientists. New data from the Odyssey and Mars Global Surveyor missions provide more evidence of an icy past. Deposits formed during an ice age 2.1 million to 400,000 years ago point to ice cover at latitudes equivalent to the southern United States and Saudi Arabia on Earth. The cover image shows how Mars would have looked at the height of the ice age. Simulated surface deposit has been superposed on MOLA topography and albedo map.
December 17th, 2003
Mars May Be Emerging From An Ice Age
NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey missions have provided evidence of a relatively recent ice age on Mars. In contrast to Earth’s ice ages, a Martian ice age waxes when the poles warm, and water vapor is transported toward lower latitudes. Martian ice ages wane when the poles cool and lock water into polar icecaps. The “pacemakers” of ice ages on Mars appear to be much more extreme than the comparable drivers of climate change on Earth. Variations in the planet’s orbit and tilt produce remarkable changes in the distribution of water ice from Polar Regions down to latitudes equivalent to Houston or Egypt. Researchers, using NASA spacecraft data and analogies to Earth’s Antarctic Dry Valleys, report their findings in Thursday’s edition of the journal Nature.
December 16th, 2003
Urban heat, pollution found to mess up weather
The massive amounts of heat and pollution that rise from the world’s cities both delay and stimulate the fall of precipitation, cheating some areas of much-needed rain and snow while dousing others, scientists said. The findings support growing evidence that urbanization has a sharp and alarming effect on the climate, and those changes can wreak havoc with precipitation patterns that supply life’s most precious resource: water.
December 10th, 2003
Man changed climate for 8,000 years?
Measurements of ancient air bubbles trapped in Antarctic ice offered evidence that humans have been changing the global climate since thousands of years before the industrial revolution. The combined increases of carbon dioxide and methane gases implicated in global warming were slow but steady and staved off what should have been a period of significant natural cooling, said Bill Ruddiman, emeritus professor at the University of Virginia.