Earth, Mars and CO2

I was just reading that on Mars in summer it is +30°C, yet its atmosphere is:

23.75 teratons of CO2 (Wikipedia state 95% of its atmosphere is CO2)

compared to Earths 180.18 teratons of CO2 (0.038%).

Mars gets 43% of the energy from the Sun that Earth does.

In summary: We have more than 7.5 times as much CO2 in the atmosphere than Mars and receive 2.32 times more energy, yet we are no hotter for it??

Put another way - put us at the distance of Mars, and watch how this planet will freeze.

[edit on 21-12-2009 by mirageofdeceit]

Interesting....is that +30*C during the Martian day?

If so, what does it drop to at night in the summer time?

-37°C at night in summer.

Second line.

TA DA!

You have managed to find the blindingly obvious science that most of the worlds governments over look.

Such as Water vapor is a bigger greenhouse gas than CO2.

Have a watch of this, though it might not be 100% right it offers some interesting ideas on how data is processed and people will change the world around them to prove a point.

Originally posted by mirageofdeceit

Put another way - put us at the distance of Mars, and watch how this planet will freeze.

Not unless you took away 99% of our atmosphere in the process. That's why it gets so cold at night on Mars. The heat capacity of its atmosphere is very low because there really isn't very much of it.

[edit on 12/21/2009 by Phage]

Originally posted by mirageofdeceit
I was just reading that on Mars in summer it is +30°C, yet its atmosphere is:

23.75 teratons of CO2 (Wikipedia state 95% of its atmosphere is CO2)

compared to Earths 180.18 teratons of CO2 (0.038%).

Mars gets 43% of the energy from the Sun that Earth does.

In summary: We have more than 7.5 times as much CO2 in the atmosphere than Mars and receive 2.32 times more energy, yet we are no hotter for it??

Put another way - put us at the distance of Mars, and watch how this planet will freeze.

[edit on 21-12-2009 by mirageofdeceit]

Well, yes of course we would "freeze", seeing as how we would be farther from the Sun and thus receive less energy from it...about 2.5 times less...your premise is a little faulty.

And only the equatorial regions in the Summer time can have peak temperatures as stated in your OP, but that has nothing to do with the atmosphere. It has everything to do with the lack of atmosphere.

The Martian atmosphere is only .1% of Earth's. It has no "jacket" to protect itself from solar bombardment, so the temperature fluctuations that you see are not due to CO2, but rather solar radiation pounding the surface of the planet.

And you didn't clear up the little "detail" in your temperatures that those are maximums, not averages. Earth's average temperature is 13-14 Celsius, and the Martian average is -55 Celsius.

Also, for your theory on CO2 to be valid, there would have to be a similar, negligible effect on Venus. Venus' atmosphere is primarily CO2, and its atmosphere is so thick that hardly any solar energy reaches the planet...but interestingly enough, Venus is one of the hottest objects in the solar system.

reply to post by Avenginggecko


...which no one has been able to account for, as venus should logically only be about 90 degrees hotter than earth.

reply to post by vyrox


Ermm...no. Venus should not "logically be" 90 degrees warmer than the Earth. Its atmosphere is so thick and dense with CO2 that it has caused a "runaway" greenhouse effect that effectively made the planet an inferno. What we don't know is why the planet stopped regulating its own CO2 levels and allowed them to build up in the atmosphere instead of being reabsorbed through carbon sinks. Just because solar radiation is mitigated by the atmosphere doesn't mean that whatever gets through dissipates at an equal rate.

Look at it this way: 10 bits of solar energy hit Venus every day. Two bits make it through to the planet and the rest bounce off. .5 bits of energy dissipate naturally, but due to the CO2, 1.5 bits are kept within the planet and bounce around as heat. The next day, 10 more bits hit, 2 make it through, .5 bounces off, and 1.5 stays. Now you have 3 bits of solar energy in the planet as opposed to yesterday's 1.5. That's extremely simplified but basically how it works.

You missed the point about the Earth freezing if it were to be at the same distance as Mars.

Earth wouldn't get warm in the first place, making most areas sub-zero even in Summer. As it is, maximums are only hitting +50°C in the desert.

7.5 times more atmospheric CO2, 2.5 times the energy - where is the bit of the equation to mean we do not get any hotter than we do?

Why is it that for the last decade, my area has failed to get close to the highs seen in 1998?

Why is it that instead of posting ever higher record highs, is it that places are currently recording record lows?

CO2 rises unabated, yet temperatures are getting LOWER?