Radiative‐convective model of warming Mars with artificial greenhouse gases

Abstract

Artificial greenhouse gases could be used to warm Mars in order to make it habitable. Here we present new laboratory measurements of the thermal infrared absorption spectra of seven artificial greenhouse gases (CF4, C2F6, C3F8, SF6, CF3Cl, CF3Br, CF2Cl2) at concentrations from 10−7 up to unity. We used a radiative‐convective multilayer model to compute the warming caused by a mixture of the four fluorine‐based greenhouse gases. The results show that for current Mars, C3F8 produces the largest warming: 0.56 K and 33.5 K for partial pressures of 10−3 Pa and 1 Pa, respectively. Averaged over partial pressures from 0.01 to 1 Pa, the range of most interest for planetary ecosynthesis, CF4, C2F6, and SF6 were 17%, 49%, and 48% as effective as C3F8, respectively. The optimal mixture of the four fluorine‐based greenhouse gases, taking into account the overlapping of their absorption bands, was 16% more effective than pure C3F8, averaged over the range 0.01 Pa to 1 Pa. Energy balance calculations suggest that the addition of ∼0.2 Pa of the best greenhouse gases mixture or ∼0.4 Pa of C3F8 would shift the equilibrium to the extent that CO2 would no longer be stable at the Martian poles and a runaway greenhouse effect would result.