Re: That global warming thingy

In article <ln5Jh.64720$Du6.44255@edtnps82>, Homer J Simpson wrote:

"Eeyore" <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:45F4DAFF.729EAC10@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Or dump it and water on Mars. Terraforming in action.

Please don't make me want to thump you for cretinism !

It's a somewhat real suggestion. Enough CO2 would create an atmosphere,
warmth and protect the planet. Plants would convert the CO2 to O2, fixing
carbon.

Of course it's a long way to haul gas.

Somehow I think Mars has a problem of insufficient gravity to hold onto
a good atmosphere.

Consider the situation in the upper fringes of Earth's atmosphere. As
in the region referred to as the thermosphere due to high temperature, or
the middle and upper part of what is referred to as the ionosphere due to
some of the air molecules being ionized.

At 150 km above the surface, the temperature is about 740 K according to
Wiki. Density there is only a couple billionths that at sea level, but I
think any air loss there will be a problem.

That high up, mean molecular weight is only 24, according to the "ICAO
Standard Atmosphere" stuff in the 43rd edition of the CRC Handbook. This
makes me think some of the oxygen there is monatomic - with a molecular
weight of 16. Let's see how well gravity keeps oxygen atoms from flying
away to outer space at 740 Kelvin.

Average translational kinetic energy of the molecules in a mole of a gas
is 1.5 times R (universal gas law constant) times temperature. R is 8.3
joules per degree-mole. For monatomic oxygen, a mole is 16 grams and the
oxygen atoms in such a quantity would have a kinetic energy of 9213
joules.

9213 joules of kinetic energy in .016 kilogram works out to 1073 meters
per second.

Come to think of it, how about at the altitude where the mean free path
of atmosphere molecules is 10 KM - about 280 km above sea level.
Based on
http://amsglossary.allenpress.com/glossary/search?id=standard-atmosphere1

I figure a temperature of 1421 K. Oxygen atoms there would have kinetic
energy translating to a speed of 1487 meters/second. I think some
significant fraction (around .01% or so?) of these would be flying at
speeds 2-2.5 times that, at 3-3.5 km/second. A smaller fraction will be
moving even faster.

Escape velocity is 11.119 km/sec for Earth and 5.03 km/sec for Mars, at
the surface, and a few percent less at atmosphere fringe altitudes. This
looks like no problem for Earth, but I wonder if an oxygen atmosphere's
years or millennia on Mars would be numbered?

- Don Klipstein (don@xxxxxxxxx)
.

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