Science

WASHINGTON — Injecting synthetic “super” greenhouse gases into the Martian atmosphere could raise the planet’s temperature enough to melt its polar ice caps and create conditions suitable for sustaining biological life. In fact, a team of researchers suggests that introducing global warming on the Red Planet may be the best approach for warming the planet’s frozen landscape and turning it into a habitable world in the future.

Margarita Marinova, then at the NASA Ames Research Center, and colleagues propose that the same types of atmospheric interactions that have led to recent surface temperature warming trends on Earth could be harnessed on Mars to create another biologically hospitable environment in the solar system. In the February issue of Journal of Geophysical Research-Planets, published by the American Geophysical Union, the researchers report on the thermal energy absorption and the potential surface temperature effects from introducing man-made greenhouse gases strong enough to melt the carbon dioxide and ice on Mars.

“Bringing life to Mars and studying its growth would contribute to our understanding of evolution, and the ability of life to adapt and proliferate on other worlds,” Marinova said. “Since warming Mars effectively reverts it to its past, more habitable state, this would give any possibly dormant life on Mars the chance to be revived and develop further.”

The authors note that artificially created gases–which would be nearly 10,000 times more effective than carbon dioxide–could be manufactured to have minimal detrimental effects on living organisms and the ozone layer while retaining an exceptionally long lifespan in the environment. They then created a computer model of the Martian atmosphere and analyzed four such gases, individually and in combination, that are considered the best candidates for the job.

Their study focused on fluorine-based gases, composed of elements readily available on the Martian surface, that are known to be effective at absorbing thermal infrared energy. They found that a compound known as octafluoropropane, whose chemical formula is C3F8, produced the greatest warming, while its combination with several similar gases enhanced the warming even further.

The researchers anticipate that adding approximately 300 parts per million of the gas mixture in the current Martian atmosphere, which is the equivalent of nearly two parts per million in an Earth- like atmosphere, would spark a runaway greenhouse effect, creating an instability in the polar ice sheets that would slowly evaporate the frozen carbon dioxide on the planet’s surface. They add that the release of increasing amounts of carbon dioxide would lead to further melting and global temperature increases that could then enhance atmospheric pressure and eventually restore a thicker atmosphere to the planet.

Such a process could take centuries or even millennia to complete but, because the raw materials for the fluorine gases already exist on Mars, it is possible that astronauts could create them on a manned mission to the planet. It would otherwise be impossible to deliver gigaton-sized quantities of the gas to Mars. The authors conclude that introducing powerful greenhouse gases is the most feasible technique for raising the temperature and increasing the atmospheric pressure on Mars, particularly when compared to other alternatives like sprinkling sunlight-absorbing dust on the poles or placing large mirrors in the planet’s orbit.

COPAP has developed a new detection device that will aid research into global climate change, environmental studies, life-science research and environmental monitoring and improve understanding on aerosols.

“It is now recognised that aerosols play a central role in a range of environmental problems such as respiratory diseases, climate change and decreased visibility,” says Dr Vidmantas Ulevicius, Head of the Environmental Physics and Chemistry Laboratory at the Lithuanian Institute of Physics, the project’s lead partner.

The problem arises because the majority of the mass in fine aerosol particles is not directly emitted but formed through numerous reactions with other gasses in the atmosphere. These reactions are extremely difficult to define as many reactions are short lived and others produce minute particles in the atmosphere. It is these secondary aerosol particles that create environmental problems; these can now be detected thanks to the research in this project.

The sources of each of the major chemical constituents of the aerosols must be known and their role in atmospheric processes must be determined, in order to regulate and reduce their detrimental effects. “In this sense, aerosol science is now at the same level as the measurement of most gaseous pollutants was over a decade ago,” says Ulevicius.

To help increase knowledge and thereby develop efficient abatement strategies, the EUROENVIRON COPAP project designed a new particle counter able to measure the concentration of these small aerosol particles. It can measure particles as small as 5 nm in diameter, in concentrations between 0.01 and 105 particles/cm3.

The new device will provide reliable aerosol data, the lack of which has until now hindered the understanding of the formation of secondary aerosols and evaluation of ways to regulate and prevent environmental damage.

Professor Markku Kulmala, who leads the Physics Department at the University of Helsinki, co ordinated the Finnish academic and commercial partners and supervised the theoretical, calibration and field studies. He says: “EUREKA was crucial. Without it, this work would not have been possible.”

Ulevicius agrees: “EUREKA not only helped in the development of the new instrument but also forged co operation between scientists and commercial companies in Lithuania and Finland.”

The project is set to increase the turnover of the commercial partners – Eltera Ltd in Lithuania and Dekati Ltd in Finland – both of which will manufacture and market some 50 instruments per year.

Living in sunny times 
American Scientist, Dec 25 2004
A publication in Nature last October by solar physicist Sami K. Solanki of the Max-Planck-Institut fr Sonnensystemforschung and four of his colleagues is bound to intensify the arguments. Solanki and coworkers attempted to estimate “sunspot numbers,” a general barometer of solar activity, for times long before the beginning of the observational record, which starts four centuries ago. Their main result is expressed in the title of their paper: “Unusual activity of the Sun during recent decades compared to the previous 11,000 years.”

Evidence for sun-climate link reported by UMaine scientists
University of Maine, Dec 22 2004
A team led by University of Maine scientists has reported finding a potential link between changes in solar activity and the Earth’s climate. In a paper due to be published in an upcoming volume of the Annals of Glaciology, Paul Mayewski, director of UMaine’s Climate Change Institute, and 11 colleagues from China, Australia and UMaine describe evidence from ice cores pointing to an association between the waxing and waning of zonal wind strength around Antarctica and a chemical signal of changes in the sun’s output.

Sun is more active now than over the last 8000 years
Max Planck Society, Oct 28 2004
Because the brightness of the Sun varies slightly with solar activity, the new reconstruction indicates also that the Sun shines somewhat brighter today than in the 8,000 years before. Whether this effect could have provided a significant contribution to the global warming of the Earth during the last century is an open question.

Dim Sun: Global dimming? Global warming?
Grist Magazine, Sept 22 2004
Until Ohmura poked his nose into the radiation record, nobody had noticed that between 1958 and 1988, a whopping 10 percent of solar radiation had disappeared.

Global warming: Tony Blair and other stellar effects
JunkScience.com, Sep 19 2004
Tony Blair has made much of enhanced greenhouse and global warming – the Central England Temperature record suggests his fears are groundless. You can either believe a 340-year temperature record or a politician – suit yourself.

UHIE? UHIE who?
JunkScience.com, Sep 10, 2004
UHIE is the acronym for Urban Heat Island Effect.

How strongly does the sun influence global climate?
Max Planck Society, Aug. 3 2004
As the scientists have reported in the renowned scientific journal, Physical Review Letters, since 1940 the mean sunspot number is higher than it has ever been in the last thousand years and two and a half times higher than the long term average. The temporal variation in the solar activity displays a similarity to that of the mean temperature of the Earth.

Chat transcript: The science (or lack thereof) in ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ with Dr. James O’Brien
GlobalWarming.org, Jun 03 2004
Of course any variation in the sun will be felt in our climate. I am not an expert on solar variations. Recently however, I read that pollution from increasing pollution was reflecting sunlight and reducing short wave energy (light) from reaching the ground and ocean and turning into longwave energy (heat).

Chat transcript: Iain Murray on ‘The Kyoto Protocol and its future’
GlobalWarming.org, May 27, 2004
I have no doubt that the solar wind and other cosmic phenomena affect climate, but I don’t think this particular research is precise enough to say that the temperature rises since 1970 were due mostly to cosmic ray flux.

Urban Heat Island Effect Still an Issue; McIntyre and McKitrick Praised; More Fiddling with Paleoclimatology
Cooler Heads Coalition, Dec 17, 2003
“The ice age reached its coldest point during a 70-year period from 1645-1715 known as the Maunder Minimum, which was named after the 19th century solar astronomer, E.W. Maunder, who documented a lack of solar activity during the period.

Hockey Stick Data Wrong?; Hockey Stick Crowd Dismiss Medieval Warm Period
Cooler Heads Coalition, Oct 30, 2003
German scientists from the Max Planck Institute along with Finnish scientists from Oulu University have reconstructed sunspot activity over the past millennium. They conclude that the sun has been in what they term a “frenzy” since 1940, which may be a factor in global warming.

Russian Scientists Question Alarmism
Cooler Heads Coalition, Sep 17, 2003
The Russians commend the work of Friis-Christensen and Lassen on the correlation between sunspot activity and climate and back it up with their own research.

Cosmic Influence on Climate
Cooler Heads Coalition, Jul 09, 2003
In new research published in GSA Today, a publication of the Geological Society of America, researchers Nir Shahiv and Jan Veizer conclude that cosmic rays emanating from dying stars account for 75 percent of the change in the Earths climate over the past 500 million years.

Troubling Lack of Science Behind Global Warming Claims
Cooler Heads Coalition, Mar 19, 2003
Essex also explained that the earths so-called greenhouse effect does not work like a greenhouse. “Incoming solar radiation adds energy to the Earths surface,” he said. To restore radiative balance the energy must be transported back to space in roughly the same amounts that it arrived in. The energy is transported via two processes infrared radiation (heat transfer) and fluid dynamics (turbulence).

New Light Shed on Sunspots
Cooler Heads Coalition, Jul 12, 1998
Professor Terry Robinson and Dr. Neil Arnold at Leicester University have constructed a computer model that may provide an explanation of how sunspots effect the climate.

Sunshine, Cosmic Rays, and Climate Change
Cooler Heads Coalition, Apr 26, 1998
Its obvious to most people that the sun plays an important role in the climate of the planet. Recently evidence has been accumulating that the sun may have more to do with temperature variations than manmade greenhouse gases.

Sun, Sun, Sun, Sun, Sunshiny Day
Cooler Heads Coalition, Mar 13, 1998
A new study published by Switzerlands Federal Institute of Technology corroborates recent studies that find that variations in the suns brightness contributes significantly to climate change.

Sun Sheds Light on Climate Change
Cooler Heads Coalition, Mar 01, 1998
Two papers delivered at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) shed light on suns role in climate change.

A Climate Change Glossary
US Environmental Protection Agency, Jan 01, 2003
Carbon Sequestration. The uptake and storage of carbon. Trees and plants, for example, absorb carbon dioxide, release the oxygen and store the carbon. Fossil fuels were at one time biomass and continue to store the carbon until burned.

Carbon sequestration by grasslands in a CO2-enriched world
CO2science.org, Oct 20 2004
Enough has been learned, however, to know that soils beneath grasslands will significantly increase their carbon-storing prowess as the atmospheric CO2 concentration continues its upward trajectory; and every extra bit of carbon storage helps, especially that which comes automatically, courtesy of the ongoing rise in the air’s CO2 content.

No realistic way to stabilize CO2
Financial Times, Jul 02, 2004
“Energy rationing without tears”that should have been the title of Lord Browne’s column (“Small steps to limit climate change”, June 30). He imagines that the world’s nations, via a series of “small steps”, could stabilize atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) at 500 to 550 parts per million by 2050 “without doing serious damage to the world economy”. This is pie in the sky. A study in the November 1, 2002 issue of the journal Science, co-authored by 18 energy and climate experts, including several who worry about global warming as much as Lord Browne, examined possible technology options that might be used in coming decades to stabilise atmospheric CO2 concentrations, including wind and solar energy, nuclear fission and fusion, biomass fuels, efficiency improvements, carbon sequestration and hydrogen fuel cells.

U.S. carbon dioxide piped, pumped into Canadian oil well
Environment News Service, June 28 2004
A partnership among U.S., Canadian and European researchers has developed a new approach that is one of the first to successfully store carbon dioxide (CO2) underground. Carbon sequestration is being evaluated internationally as a means of long-term carbon dioxide storage.

Et tu, Edison?
Competitive Enterprise Institute, Apr 27, 2004
The Edison Electric Institute (EEI), the association of shareholder-owned electric power companies, opposes the Kyoto Protocol, the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act, and kindred proposals to regulate carbon dioxide (CO2), the inescapable byproduct of the carbon-based fuelscoal, oil, and natural gasthat supply 86 percent of all the energy Americans use. Why, then, is EEI pressing the Bush Administration to institute an early credit programthe accounting framework and political setup for Kyoto-style energy rationing? Edison has a lot of explaining to do.  

Sequestration Appears Sustainable
Cooler Heads, July 23 2003
The idea that carbon sequestration via forests is a sustainable option for reducing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has come under attack in recent years. The theory is that new forest growth will quickly become saturated and will start returning stored carbon to the atmosphere by 2050. New research from Luo et al published in Global Biogeochemical Cycles suggests that this may not be the case.

Prospects of Stabilizing Emissions Appear Bleak
Cooler Heads Coalition, November 13 2002
In a major challenge to the conventional wisdom, a team of scientists has delivered a devastating blow to the Kyoto Protocol in a review of energy technologies published in the November 1 issue of Science.

CO2 Dumping: Are They Joking?
 Cooler Heads Coalition, July 24 2002
Environmental pressure groups are succeeding in their efforts to stop scientific experiments with long-term deep-ocean sequestration of carbon dioxide. On July 2, an international consortium gave up on its application to 5,000 gallons of liquefied CO2 into ocean 3,000 feet below the surface off the island of Kauai in Hawaii. The purpose was to determine its dispersal and effects on ocean chemistry.

 Where has all the Carbon Gone?
 Cooler Heads Coalition, July 11 2001
As environmentalists continue to harp on the evils of carbon dioxide, they may want to notice the lack of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Although carbon dioxide emissions are up almost 40 percent in the past 20 years, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has decreased or remained the same, according to an article in Science (July 6, 2001).

“Antarctica, Warming, Looks Ever More Vulnerable” – “A continent is quickly changing. The questions are how and why.” (New York Times)

Antarctica, however, is not warming. While the enhanced greenhouse hypothesis insists the Antarctic should demonstrate the most dramatic response to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels due to its cold, dry atmosphere, the simple fact is the Antarctic is not cooperating.

South Polar air samples record atmospheric CO₂ rising from 328 ppmv to 373 ppmv subsequent to the 1949-1974 temperature increase – almost 15% increase apparently without affecting Polar temperatures, while startling temperature changes of ~4 C (+ve and -ve) are recorded in periods when we know atmospheric CO₂ was increasing at a more leisurely rate.

A treasured hypothesis insists increasing atmospheric CO₂ should lead to increasing temperature and the South Polar super-cold, super-dry air mass should respond dramatically. Well, we looked for the CO₂ increment and it is obvious. We looked for the temperature increment and… what? Found it missing? There it was, gone?

We’ve already had the “you could see the warming if it wasn’t being hidden by the cooling (which is being hidden by the warming)” thing – see “Stratospheric Cooling?” What is Big Warming going to come up with now – “Please Miss, the ozone hole ate my Antarctic warming”?

The shock and awe resulting from the massive tsunami that hit Indian Ocean nations Dec. 26 has left many wondering what could have caused such a disaster and if there is anything humans can do to control or mitigate future events.

Some quickly suggested that an increase in the frequency of natural disasters such as the tsunami were a harbinger of what we have in store because of the increase of Earths greenhouse gases resulting from the burning of fossil fuels.
Nothing could be further from the truth, says Daniel Sarewitz, a professor of science and society and director of the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes at ASU.

In an article in The New Republic, Rising Tide The Tsunamis Real Cause, Sarewitz and Roger Pielke Jr., of University of Colorado, Boulder, say that tying the tsunami and other natural disasters to human induced climatic change is both scientifically and morally unsupportable.

“Reducing emissions is important, but it will not reduce vulnerability to disasters, Sarewitz adds.

Sarewitz notes that while the world has seen a sharp increase in natural disasters, from around 100 per year reported in the early 1960s to 500 800 per year by the early 21st century, the cause is not an increase in the frequency or severity of such events, but an increase in human vulnerability caused by where people live and how they live.

“We know how to prepare for disasters, but the world has not made this a high enough priority, Sarewitz says. If disaster preparation received the same political attention as global warming, significant progress could be made.

While more people live in coastal regions, especially in poor and developing countries, and while it is true that sea levels are rising, there is no research that suggests that the Kyoto Protocol or even more ambitious emissions reduction proposals would significantly reduce the impacts of disasters like hurricanes and tsunamis.

“It is absurd to suggest that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is an important part of the answer, Sarewitz says.

Yet coastal populations will continue to swell, putting more people in a vulnerable position should another tsunami strike. Sarewitz adds that tools to mitigate the effects of these disasters are at hand.

“Most tools needed to reduce disaster vulnerability already exist, such as risk assessment techniques, better building codes and code enforcement, land-use standards, and emergency preparedness plans, both researchers say. The question is why disaster vulnerability is so low on the list of global development priorities.

For Sarewitz, the answer is clear: Fruitful action on climate change and disaster vulnerability should proceed simultaneously.

“This will not happen until the issues of climate change and disaster vulnerability are clearly separated in the eyes of the media, the public, environmental activists, scientists and policymakers, Sarewitz says.