EMH
Diamond Member
- Apr 5, 2021
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Just in our solar system, there are several other planets/moons/dwarf planets/round objects in space that have frozen polar caps. Why does whatever form of "ice" always freeze at the poles? The poles are coldest because they are at the worst angle to the Sun and get the least amount of heat energy from Sun. The equator is perpendicular to the Sun and hence gets the strongest energy. I don't think that is too controversial, but with CO2 FRAUD you never know.
Mars is a fascinating laboratory of planetary climate change because of its highly elliptical orbit. Mars has massive climate change during each year. It goes from cold to extremely cold, and its surface air pressure (SAP) fluctuates considerably, going way up as the planet warms and way down as the planet cools.
Now, not all of that is warming/cooling, the Martian polar ice caps, mostly CO2, vary considerably during the year, and greatly affect SAP. CO2 sublimes, doesn't go into a liquid phase, simply goes from solid to gas.
The polar CO2 ice caps from Mars
The "irregularities" are from the shape of the land, hills blocking Sun etc. But they are polar caps and the frozen CO2 is generally within a certain range of the pole given the time of year, a Mars year.
On Earth we have polar caps made of H2O that do go into a liquid phase, water. It is that issue that causes Earth to have its irregular polar ice caps... the ice only grows on land, not water, or sea ice, which is only 1% or so, and includes icebergs originating from land. Antarctica is 90%, Greenland is 7%, Ellesmere is 0.3%, that's 97.3% of Earth ice. The rest is mountains and sea ice.
So while Mars' polar caps fluctuate off distance from Sun, Earth, with its more circular orbit, has a different trigger for climate change, the position of land. An Earth polar circle with no land within 600 miles of the pole has no ice, essentially "winking out" one of the planet's ice caps. That does warm Earth, as the ice cools both the air that goes above it and the water where it dumps icebergs, and that wouldn't be there anymore.
Essentially, the tectonic movement of the plates and the position of land controls the size and scope of our two polar caps. And it really does the same thing as it does on Mars.
No land near the poles = no ice = warmer, wetter, much higher SAP = Jurassic
OK, so then the question is, but the ice melts into water, it doesn't go into the atmosphere. OK, the H2O doesn't, but... the ice is from ice age glacier, where each year's ice layer is layered on top of the prior one.
GoogAI...
A 10:1 ratio is a common rule of thumb where 10 inches of snow equals 1 inch of water.
and all of that air is trapped in the ice, and those annual layers compress as more weight is added on top each year. There is more gas trapped in Antarctic ice than there is in the atmosphere now. Melt that ice and all that gas goes back into the atmosphere, so Earth's ice situation really isn't any different from Mars in that regard... melt the ice, more gas goes into atmosphere.
If you allow yourself to entertain the idea that a higher atmospheric pressure, say between 3 and 5 bar, could have existed in the time of the dinosaurs, it would resolve two of the anomalies that face us today, which are:* how a dinosaur’s heart could pump blood 7 or more meters upwards, without introducing the ideas of multiple hearts (as many as 8), giant hearts, and hearts located right under their chins, and * how a giant flying quetzalcoatlus had the energy to stay airborne, something that biology and aerodynamics says is not possible in today’s atmosphere.
So yeah, planetary climate change, assuming stable orbit, Sun energy, is driven by changes to the polar caps, whatever they are made out of, Pluto has N polar caps.
Warm the planet = cap melts/sublimes = warmer and higher SAP
For Earth, the warming comes from the changes to the amount of ice on the planet, which is about tectonic plate movement and 600 miles to the pole, but the same thing happens
Mars is a fascinating laboratory of planetary climate change because of its highly elliptical orbit. Mars has massive climate change during each year. It goes from cold to extremely cold, and its surface air pressure (SAP) fluctuates considerably, going way up as the planet warms and way down as the planet cools.
Now, not all of that is warming/cooling, the Martian polar ice caps, mostly CO2, vary considerably during the year, and greatly affect SAP. CO2 sublimes, doesn't go into a liquid phase, simply goes from solid to gas.
The polar CO2 ice caps from Mars
The "irregularities" are from the shape of the land, hills blocking Sun etc. But they are polar caps and the frozen CO2 is generally within a certain range of the pole given the time of year, a Mars year.
On Earth we have polar caps made of H2O that do go into a liquid phase, water. It is that issue that causes Earth to have its irregular polar ice caps... the ice only grows on land, not water, or sea ice, which is only 1% or so, and includes icebergs originating from land. Antarctica is 90%, Greenland is 7%, Ellesmere is 0.3%, that's 97.3% of Earth ice. The rest is mountains and sea ice.
So while Mars' polar caps fluctuate off distance from Sun, Earth, with its more circular orbit, has a different trigger for climate change, the position of land. An Earth polar circle with no land within 600 miles of the pole has no ice, essentially "winking out" one of the planet's ice caps. That does warm Earth, as the ice cools both the air that goes above it and the water where it dumps icebergs, and that wouldn't be there anymore.
Essentially, the tectonic movement of the plates and the position of land controls the size and scope of our two polar caps. And it really does the same thing as it does on Mars.
No land near the poles = no ice = warmer, wetter, much higher SAP = Jurassic
OK, so then the question is, but the ice melts into water, it doesn't go into the atmosphere. OK, the H2O doesn't, but... the ice is from ice age glacier, where each year's ice layer is layered on top of the prior one.
GoogAI...
A 10:1 ratio is a common rule of thumb where 10 inches of snow equals 1 inch of water.
and all of that air is trapped in the ice, and those annual layers compress as more weight is added on top each year. There is more gas trapped in Antarctic ice than there is in the atmosphere now. Melt that ice and all that gas goes back into the atmosphere, so Earth's ice situation really isn't any different from Mars in that regard... melt the ice, more gas goes into atmosphere.
If you allow yourself to entertain the idea that a higher atmospheric pressure, say between 3 and 5 bar, could have existed in the time of the dinosaurs, it would resolve two of the anomalies that face us today, which are:* how a dinosaur’s heart could pump blood 7 or more meters upwards, without introducing the ideas of multiple hearts (as many as 8), giant hearts, and hearts located right under their chins, and * how a giant flying quetzalcoatlus had the energy to stay airborne, something that biology and aerodynamics says is not possible in today’s atmosphere.
So yeah, planetary climate change, assuming stable orbit, Sun energy, is driven by changes to the polar caps, whatever they are made out of, Pluto has N polar caps.
Warm the planet = cap melts/sublimes = warmer and higher SAP
For Earth, the warming comes from the changes to the amount of ice on the planet, which is about tectonic plate movement and 600 miles to the pole, but the same thing happens
