Well, not so sure. The suspected reason Mars has little atmosphere or water vapor is that with no magnetic field, it all sublimated off into space eons ago. Whats left is in frozen state in the ground where it is somewhat shielded from the same fate. If you start trying to create an atmosphere with water vapor from the ground source, the same thing will probably occur. We really cant do much about the lack of a Mag field on Mars.
The article states:
Gaping canyons and river-like channels attest to the fact that large amounts of water once flowed on Mars. But today most of that water has disappeared, and finding out where it went is one of the main aims of research on the Red Planet.
The writer is not well informed. The large canyons visible from Earth are not from water flow. They are there because the crust 'crumbled' as the planet cooled. Mars has no mag field because its once molten core is now cold and solid. No moving magma, no resulting currents and mag field.
So terraforming may be much more difficult that supposed. Thats my understanding of the current theories anyway. I am not an expert on this, but its related to my area.
"So terraforming may be much more difficult that supposed. Thats my understanding of the current theories anyway. I am not an expert on this, but its related to my area."
It isn't so much the lack of magnetic field as it is simply the lower gravity. Both have an effect though.
My understanding has been that Martian terraforming would be "temporary" in the sense that the native atmosphere/water might only last a "few" million years. I guess the thinking is that by the time the atmosphere noticeably thinned we'd be able to bring in raw materials from just about anywhere. ;-)
Heck, within even a thousand years I'd expect mankind to have the technology to re-melt the Martian core if we felt like it.