Mars Emerging from Ice Age, Data Suggest

Space.com ^ | 08 December 2003 | SPACE.com

[Yo-Yo]

Scientists have suspected in recent years that Mars might be undergoing some sort of global warming. New data points to the possibility it is emerging from an ice age.

NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter has been surveying the planet for nearly a full Martian year now, and it has spotted seasonal changes like the advance and retreat of polar ice. It's also gathering data of a possible longer trend.

There appears to be too much frozen water at low-latitude regions -- away from the frigid poles -- given the current climate of Mars. The situation is not in equilibrium, said William Feldman of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

"One explanation could be that Mars is just coming out of an ice age," Feldman said. "In some low-latitude areas, the ice has already dissipated. In others, that process is slower and hasn't reached an equilibrium yet. Those areas are like the patches of snow you sometimes see persisting in protected spots long after the last snowfall of the winter."

Frozen water makes up as much as 10 percent of the top 3 feet (1 meter) of surface material in some regions close to the equator. Dust deposits may be covering and insulating the lingering ice, Feldman said.

Feldman is the lead scientist for an Odyssey instrument that assesses water content indirectly through measurements of neutron emissions. He and other Odyssey scientists described their recent findings today at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

"Odyssey is giving us indications of recent global climate change in Mars," said Jeffrey Plaut, project scientist for the mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

High latitude regions of Mars have layers with differing ice content within the top 20 inches (half-meter) or so of the surface, researchers conclude from mapping of hydrogen abundance based on gamma-ray emissions.

"A model that fits the data has three layers near the surface," said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, Tucson, team leader for the gamma-ray spectrometer instrument on Odyssey. "The very top layer would be dry, with no ice. The next layer would contain ice in the pore spaces between grains of soil. Beneath that would be a very ice-rich layer, 60 to nearly 100 percent water ice."

Boynton interprets the iciest layer as a deposit of snow or frost, mixed with a little windblown dust, from an era when the climate was colder than nowadays. The middle layer could be the result of changes brought in a warmer era, when ice down to a certain depth dissipated into the atmosphere. The dust left behind collapsed into a soil layer with limited pore space for returning ice.

More study is needed to determine for sure what's going on.

Other Odyssey instruments are providing other pieces of the puzzle. Images from the orbiter's camera system have been combined into the highest resolution complete map ever made of Mars' south polar region.

"We can now accurately count craters in the layered materials of the polar regions to get an idea how old they are," said Phil Christensen of Arizona State University, Tempe, principal investigator for the camera system.

Temperature information from the camera system's infrared imaging has produced a surprise about dark patches that dot bright expanses of seasonal carbon-dioxide ice.

"Those dark features look like places where the ice has gone away, but thermal infrared maps show that even the dark areas have temperatures so low they must be carbon-dioxide ice." Christensen said. "One possibility is that the ice is clear in these areas and we're seeing down through the ice to features underneath."

[BluSky]

Bush WAS out of the country a week and a half ago......only 2 hours can be accounted for......do the (democrat) math...... /sarcasm; yet, liberal truth serum.

[shaggy eel]

,,, awakening of the eels BUMP.

[RightWhale]

We ought to conquer to moon to some degree first, and when we are good and ready, Mars will be a great and friendly place to live.

[Cooter]

It was caused by our astronauts when they planted the flag there (according to Sheila Jackson-Lee).

[Frank_Discussion]

From another, VERY recent thread, you'll get no argument from me!

[GingisK]

That's what they told me about Earth when I was in grade school. This "global warming" would be part of that same trend, wouldn't it? (Unless I overlooked the intervening ice age.)

[U S Army EOD]

Maybe they should send her to Mars to look for the flag.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!

[LauraJean]

Jeez I didn't realize my driving an SUV would have such far reaching consquences. Oh my goodness, could it have been from the 60's when I probably went through a can of hair spray a week. What was I thinking about?

[DustyMoment]

Well, since all of you wise guys beat me to the SUV line, I guess it will be up to me to ask about the cows farting on Mars?

There has to be some sort of human intervention causing global warming on Mars. Just ask any enviro-whacko.

[Lazamataz]

Scientists have suspected in recent years that Mars might be undergoing some sort of global warming. New data points to the possibility it is emerging from an ice age.

In related news, scientists determined that global warming on Earth is completely caused by human activity.

[yatros from flatwater]

Better posting luck next time!

See #18

[Indie]

Gee...I wonder which Martian industries will have to scale back to 6 percent below 1990 emissions to SAVE THE PLANET!

Quiet Earthling! Resistance is futile! You will be assimilated. :)

[BluSky]

"Maybe they should send her [Sheila Jackson-Lee] to Mars to look for the flag."

....and could someone, please, 'b****-slap' her on the way!!! Jeez.....enough already!!! Could she just SHUT-UP for awhile.....

[revtown]

The weenie's haven't been thinking big enough:

Galactic Warming , now that's a phrase that'll grab people's attention. Global warmimg, sharming...

[RightWhale]

Galactic Warming is necessary to balance Cosmic Cooling.

[geopyg]

I mentioned this when it was in the news a year ago to a couple of environmental consultants that our global warming is getting so bad that now even Mar's ice caps are melting. They both commented that Bush is an idiot for not signing the Kyoto accord, and how we're just ruining our planet. I didn't have the heart to tell them THEY ARE IDIOTS (they were my clients). Seattle area Starbucks birkenstock types.

[ETERNAL WARMING]

Nah...it's the evil smokers and SUV drivers!

[Brett66]

Ok, don't any of you get it? We landed the Viking space probes there back in the 70's and they were n-u-k-l-e-a-r
powered. It's obviously our fault.

[DustyMoment]

AAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!