Early Mars: How warm and how wet?

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It is clear that conditions on Mars during the Noachian period, which extended from the beginning of Mars' geologic record to something like 3.9 b.y.a., were significantly different than they are today. As on the other planets, the meteoritic bombardment rate was far higher than it is at present, as evidenced by the densely cratered nature of Noachian terrains. But there were other differences as well, some inferred, some more obvious. The nature of these differences and what they imply about broader topics of planetary evolution were the primary subjects of the workshop, “Early Mars: How Warm and How Wet?,” held July 26–28, in Breckenridge, Colo. The workshop was sponsored by NASA's Mars' Surface and Atmosphere Through Time (MSATT) program.