Mars is an icy world today. However, throughout history, there have been periods of warmer temperatures, with rivers and seas flowing, melting glaciers, and possibly abundant life. Changes in the Martian climate can offer clues about the evolution of other planets, so research has intensified to understand them. The climate on Mars and evidence of a possible ocean.
However, today, Mars has a parched surface in which the amount of water in its atmosphere often condenses into frost, especially near its north pole. In that area it forms perennial ice caps. What happened to the climate of Mars?
The surface and atmosphere of Mars
Although it seems unprecedented, although CO2 retains heat, in the region of the south pole of the planet Mars, Lots of frozen CO2 resides. The surface of this planet shows no signs of water, except in some frosty areas or in the form of valleys carved by ancient floods. For more details about the soil of Mars, you can consult this article.
The atmosphere of Mars is cold, dry, and rarefied. This thin veil, composed mostly of CO2, creates a pressure on the surface that is less than 1% of that registered on Earth at sea level. The orbit of Mars is 50% further from the Sun than our planet. In addition, the atmosphere that surrounds it is very fine, which contributes to this icy climate. Average temperatures are -60 degrees, reaching temperatures of -123 degrees at the poles. This data is vital to understanding the climate change on Mars.
Quite the opposite. The midday sun is capable of heating the surface enough to produce an occasional thaw, but the low atmospheric pressure causes the water to evaporate almost instantly.
Although the atmosphere contains a small amount of water and occasionally produces clouds of water and ice, the Martian climate is characterized by dust storms or carbon dioxide gales. Each winter, a blizzard of frozen carbon dioxide hits one of the poles, and as the frozen carbon dioxide evaporates at the opposite polar cap, several meters of that dry ice snow accumulate. But even in the pole where it is summer and the sun shines all day, the temperatures rise so much as to melt that icy water.
The past of Mars
Most of the craters on Mars are heavily eroded. Around almost every youngest and largest crater you can see structures similar to mud runoffsThese muddy ejecta are likely the icy remnants of ancient cataclysms, collisions of asteroids or comets with the surface of Mars, which melted areas of the frozen permafrost and dug huge holes deep underground to reach areas containing liquid water. This highlights the importance of understanding how the Mars's past influences its current climate.
Evidence has been found that ice once formed on the surface, creating typically glacial landscapes. These include rocky ridges formed by sediment left behind by melting glaciers and meandering ribbons of sand and gravel deposited beneath glaciers by rivers running beneath the ice sheet. To learn more about the climatic evolution of Mars, visit .
It is possible that the water cycle on Mars had components in the wet episodes. A dense atmosphere would most likely contain a considerable amount of water evaporated from lakes and seas. Water vapor would condense to form clouds and eventually precipitate as rain. The falling water would create runoff, much of it filtering through the surface. Furthermore, snowfall would accumulate, forming glaciers, and these would discharge their meltwater into glacial lakes, highlighting the climate change the planet has undergone.
Some of the images taken from Mars reveal the existence of huge drainage channels ruptured on the surface. Some of these structures are more than 200 kilometers wide and stretch for 2000 kilometers or more. The geometry of these drainage channels indicates that the water could have crossed the surface no less than at about 270 kilometers per hour.
A lost ocean?
In some high areas of Mars there are extensive systems of valleys that drain into sedimentary bottom depressions, low areas that were once flooded. But these lakes were not the largest accumulations of water on the planet. In recurrent floods, the drainage channels discharged towards the north and thus formed a series of transient lakes and seas. As can be interpreted from the photographs, many of the features observed around these old impact basins mark the areas where glaciers discharged into these deep bodies of water. This research may shed light on the terraforming of Mars.
According to various calculations, one of the largest seas north of Mars could have displaced a volume equivalent to that of the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean Sea together. There is even the possibility that an ocean had existed on Mars. The proof of this is based on the fact that many of the features of the northern plains were reminiscent of the erosion of the coastlines. This hypothetical ocean was called the Borealis Ocean. It is estimated that it could be about four times larger than our Arctic Ocean and the model of the water cycle on Mars was proposed that could explain its creation.
Most planetology experts now accept that large bodies of water recurrently formed on the northern plains of Mars, but many deny that there ever was a true ocean. However, this debate continues to offer a space for research into the climate change on Mars.
Climate Change
On a young Mars, vigorous erosion may have smoothed the surface. But later, as it advanced into middle age, its face became cold, dry, and scarred. Since then, there have only been a few scattered warm periods that rejuvenated its surface in certain areas. This evolution is crucial to understanding how Climate change affects Mars.
However, the mechanism that alternates between mild and severe climate regimes on Mars remains largely a mystery. At this time, only crude explanations can be offered as to how these climate changes might have occurred. One hypothesis for climate change on Mars is based on the tilt of the rotational axis from its ideal position, perpendicular to the orbital plane. Like Earth, Mars is now tilted about 24 degrees. This inclination varies regularly over time. The incline also changes sharply. Every 10 million years or so, the variation of the tilt axis covers, sporadically, up to 60 degrees. Likewise, the orientation of the tilt axis and the shape of the orbit of Mars change over time, according to a cycle.
These celestial mechanisms, especially the tendency of the axis of rotation to tilt excessively, cause extreme seasonal temperatures. Even with a rarefied atmosphere like the one that covers the planet today, summer temperatures at mid- and high-latitudes could have steadily exceeded freezing for weeks during periods of high slant, and the winters would have been even harsher than they are today. The effects of climate change on Mars are a very active area of study.
