planetary atmospheres & life

PLANETARY ATOMOSPHERES & LIFE Might our earth undergo a runaway greenhouse

warming similar to Venus?

Paul H. Carr

www.MirrorOfNature.org

Life in our Milky Way Galaxy?

REQUIREMETS FOR LIFE ? LIQUID WATER & GASES

Vacuum of

1 Bar 3 x 10-1510-14 0.01 92

Gravity helps hold planet’s atmosphere. Venus had a CO2 runaway greenhouse effect.

LUNAR ECLIPSE 27 SEPT. 20159:41 PM

Diffraction through earth’s atmosphere

10:24 PM Near Total Eclipse

VACUUM ON THE MOON 3 X 10-15 BARNo greenhouse gas atmosphere

• Diurnal Variations:

Night -233 C (40 Kelvin)

Day 123 C (396 Kelvin)

ON EARTH• Greenhouse gasses, blanketing the earth, give much

smaller variations.

• On cloudless nights, non-condensing and increasing CO2 (100 year life) and other greenhouse gases keep us warmer than on the moon.

Increasing CO2 gas density: 1. raises temperature of earth’s surface. 2. reduces temperature of the stratosphere. 7

-Outgoing spectral radiance at the top of Earth's atmosphere showing the absorption at specific frequencies and the principle absorber CO2 at 16 microns. -The red curve shows the flux from a classic "blackbody" at 294°K (≈31°C≈69.5°F).  Schmidt, G.A.,  2010 J. Geophys. Res.,115, D20106, doi:10.1029/2010JD014287.

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PLANETARY TEMPERATURES, VACUUMS, & ATMOSPHERES.Science, 330, 356-359, 15 October 2010

Parameter Mars Earth Venus MercuryTemp. (K) 293 Day 300 Day 730 Day 700 Day 200 Night 280 Night 730 Night 100 Night

Pressure (bar) 0.01 1 92 10-14

Ultraviolet observations of VENUS’ cloud cover----Venus surface temp hotter than Mercury’s 700 K.730K (457 C) is hot enough to melt lead.

ATMOSPHERESVenus: 96% CO2Earth: 21% Oxygen, 0.04% CO2

Mars: 95% CO2

Artist's concept of a protoplanetary disk, where particles of dust and grit collided and accreted by gravitational attraction to form our planets.

Why does our earth have 21 % oxygen, 0.04% CO2? -Neighboring Venus & Mars are mostly CO2

Figure from “Cosmic Dawn” by Eric Chaisson

Photosynthesis of blue-green algae converted CO2 to Oxygen

Carbon Dioxide, CO2

Prokaryote Cells Eukaryote Cells

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• Cambrian Explosion of multicellular life made possible by increasing oxygen levels.

- CO2 was converted to O2 by photosynthesis.

- Enabling animals that get energy by oxidizing sugars.

542 M years Beginning of Multicellular Life.“The Fossil Record of the Cambrian Explosion” Keith Miller, PSCF, June 2014

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LIFE on EARTH Single celled life for billions of years. Cambrian Explosion of Multi-celled life, 540 million

years ago.

LIFE’S MILESTONES First single celled life 4,000,000,000 years ago Cambrian Explosion of multicellular life 400, 000,000 Mammals replace dinosaurs 40,000,000 First Primates and Humans 4, 000,000 Neanderthal human hunter-gathers 400,000 Cave Paintings, Neanderthals extinct 40,000 Homo Sapiens’ agricultural revolution, writing 4,000 Western scientific revolution, printing 400 Electronics, Satellite Communication 40

Internet, Facebook 4 THE HUMAN IMPACT IS MUCH FASTER THAN NATURAL PROCESSES

NASA

Oceans left Mars 1 billion years ago. It lost its denser CO2 atmosphere whose greenhouse effect kept water liquid.

NASA’s Curiosity Rover discovered this layered geological history of Mars at the base of Mount Sharp in August 2012. Are fossils in these rock strata?

The solar particle wind may have stripped away Mars’ CO2 atmosphere. Unlike our earth, Mars does not have a global magnetic field to deflect these particles. Its gravity is less than that of our earth. NASA will be sending an orbiter to Mars called Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution.

Pluto

--Dwarf Planet Pluto is in the Kuiper Belt.

--4.5 light-hours from sun

-Rocks & 50 K temp ice too cold for life.

Jupiter’s Moon, Europa, has the right combination for life: a) chemical abundance of essential elements in its rocky core, b) a liquid water ocean (covered by an icy crust), and c) a constant source of energy (tidal heating) from its elliptical orbit, operating over billions of years.All this implies a “sea floor” environment analogous to, if not identical to, Earth’s mid-ocean ridges.

PROPOSED DEBATE ON

LIFE in the UNIVERSEBetween

Cosmologist, CARL SAGAN (1934 – 1996)

Sagan believed many kinds of intelligent life could form, but that the lack of evidence suggests that intelligent beings destroy themselves

rather quickly.

And

Evolutionary biologist, ERNST MAYR (1904 - 2005, Bedford, MA) Mayr believed single cell life in the universe is very likely,

but intelligent life very rare.

VENUS, 5:48 AM, 9/8/2015 , 135 mm lens

Might our earth undergo runaway greenhouse warming similar to Venus?

Fossil fuel burning is increasing CO2 concentrations. Temperature increases correlate with CO2.

CORRELTAION BETWEEN TEMP AND CO2 INCREASE

From the Greenhous Effect. 25

At present rate of 2.5 ppm rise per year, humans are increasing CO2 at a rate 300 times faster than the recovery from the ice age 18,000 -10,000 years ago.

CO2 CONCENTRATIONS, HIGHEST (33%) IN 800,000 YRS, COULD REACH ~1000 PPM BY 21OO.

Ice Age

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• Our present level of 400 ppm could reach ~ 1000 ppm by 2100.

• Arctic became ice-free 8 M years ago when CO2 = 300 to 450 ppm.• Antarctic melted ~ 40 M years ago, CO2 ~ 700 ppm• Earth was ice-free, sea levels 100s meters (~300 ft) higher.

Dinosaur Extinction 65M Yr. BP Figure from Dr. James Hansen, NASA GISS

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THERMAL MAXIMUM

Photograph by Ira Block When the Ocean Went Dark National Geographic October 2011, vol 220. no 4. pg. 90 http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/10/hothouse-earth/kunzig-text Paleoceanographer James Zachos holds a replica of a sediment core that shows an abrupt change in the Atlantic Ocean 51 -55 million years ago, at the onset of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). White plankton shells vanished from the seafloor mud, shifting its color from white to red. As planet-warming CO2 and CH4 clathrates surged into the atmosphere, Zachos says, it also seeped into the seas, acidifying the water and dissolving the shells.

Life in our Milky Way Galaxy?

Earth

Artist concept of likely rocky Exoplanet Kepler 452b, 385 day orbit in habitable zone of star, 20% hotter than our sun, 1400 light-years away. Discovered July 2015

AMERICAN SCIENTIST, July-August 2011ALONE IN THE UNIVERSEDespite the growing catalog of extrasolar planets, data so far do not alter estimates that we are effectively on our own. Howard A. Smith

This artist’s impression shows the planet HD 189733b, about 63 light-years from Earth, which is known to have water and methane in its atmosphere, although at temperatures over 1,000 degrees Celsius. However, data from extrasolar planets so far do not alter estimates that we are probably alone in the universe, for all practical purposes.

LIFE on the EXO-PLANETS

Evolutionary biologist, ERNST MAYR (1904 - 2005, Bedford, MA)

Single cell life in the universe is very likely, but intelligent life

very rare.

“…Life on earth is precious and deserves supreme respect. Even if we are not unique in the universe-though we may not know one way of another for eons-we are fortunate. We have a responsibility to act with compassion toward people and our fragile environment.” Howard Smith

Naturalist John Muir (1838 – 1914) When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with all other stars all singing and shinning together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty.

CLIMATE SHOCK

• “If an asteroid hurling toward Earth with strong probability strike within 40 years, rise sea levels 3 feet, render coasts uninhabitable, intensify hurricanes and tornadoes, cause frequent floods and landslides…every government would work furiously to discover how that asteroid could be diverted and destroyed.”

from “Environment: An Interdisciplinary Anthology” by G. Adelson, J. Engell, B. Ranalli, & K. Van Angeln 2008. Yale U Press.Pg 17

Prophetic Pope Francis:

• MORAL IMPERATIVE: Stop plundering our planet for profit, the poor suffering the most.

200 Page Encyclical Laudato Si: On Care for our Common Home. June 2015

Canadian Tar Sands: “Scraping Bottom” National Geographic, 3/2009

“Reverence for the life” of this forest?

Life is a Beautiful Gift

PLANETARY VACUUMS, ATOMOSPHERES, & LIFE

CONCLUSIONS:

• The emergence of plant photosynthesis produced the 21% oxygen that enables our life.

• We must stop CO2 fossil fuel emissions by: - conservation, efficiency increases, carbon emission surcharge, and - energy from solar, wind, nuclear, & hydro.