TY - JOUR
T1 - Photochemical and climate consequences of sulfur outgassing on early Mars
AU - Tian, Feng
AU - Claire, Mark W.
AU - Haqq-Misra, Jacob D.
AU - Smith, Megan
AU - Crisp, David C.
AU - Catling, David
AU - Zahnle, Kevin
AU - Kasting, James F.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Michael Beach and William Lee for their help with the computations. MC, FT, JHM, DC, and KZ acknowledge support from a NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) Director's Discretionary Fund award “Volcanic SO 2 , Atmospheric Photochemistry, and Climate on Early Mars.” FT acknowledges support from the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at MIT during the early stage of model development, and thanks O.B. Toon and M.J. Mills for helpful discussions and H.G. Kjaergaard for providing H 2 SO 4 photolysis data. MC acknowledges funding from the NAI Virtual Planetary Laboratory . JFK acknowledges financial support from NASA Exobiology grant # NNG05G088G and from the NAI .
PY - 2010/7
Y1 - 2010/7
N2 - Ancient Mars might have been warm and wet compared to today, but climate models have trouble reproducing this warmth, partly because of the faintness of the young Sun and partly because of inherent limitations to CO2-H2O greenhouse warming. In particular, Rayleigh scattering of incoming sunlight by a dense, CO2-rich atmosphere leads to a high planetary albedo, thereby reducing the amount of sunlight absorbed by the planet. It has been recently suggested that the presence of 1-100ppmv SO2 in Mars' early atmosphere might have provided enough additional greenhouse warming to maintain a warm, wet early Mars. We show, however, that this warming should have been more than offset by cooling from sulfate and sulfur aerosols in early martian atmosphere. Hence, the paradox of Mars' early climate remains unresolved.
AB - Ancient Mars might have been warm and wet compared to today, but climate models have trouble reproducing this warmth, partly because of the faintness of the young Sun and partly because of inherent limitations to CO2-H2O greenhouse warming. In particular, Rayleigh scattering of incoming sunlight by a dense, CO2-rich atmosphere leads to a high planetary albedo, thereby reducing the amount of sunlight absorbed by the planet. It has been recently suggested that the presence of 1-100ppmv SO2 in Mars' early atmosphere might have provided enough additional greenhouse warming to maintain a warm, wet early Mars. We show, however, that this warming should have been more than offset by cooling from sulfate and sulfur aerosols in early martian atmosphere. Hence, the paradox of Mars' early climate remains unresolved.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.epsl.2010.04.016
DO - 10.1016/j.epsl.2010.04.016
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:77953722516
SN - 0012-821X
VL - 295
SP - 412
EP - 418
JO - Earth and Planetary Science Letters
JF - Earth and Planetary Science Letters
IS - 3-4
ER -
