Methane storage capacity of the early martian cryosphere

Lasue, J.; Quesnel, Yoann; Langlais, B.; Chassefière, Éric

doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2015.07.010

Cited by 19 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 83 publications

(118 reference statements)

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“…Another is the contribution of impactors to the atmospheric H 2 and CH 4 inventory. A third possibility is CH 4 clathration [ Lasue et al , ]. Due to adiabatic cooling of the surface under a denser CO 2 atmosphere, most of Mars' surface ice would have stabilized in the southern highlands [ Wordsworth et al , ], in the regions where most serpentine has been detected from orbit [ Ehlmann et al , ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transient reducing greenhouse warming on early Mars

Wordsworth

Kalugina

Lokshtanov

et al. 2017

Geophysical Research Letters

221

324

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The evidence for abundant liquid water on early Mars despite the faint young Sun is a long‐standing problem in planetary research. Here we present new ab initio spectroscopic and line‐by‐line climate calculations of the warming potential of reduced atmospheres on early Mars. We show that the strength of both CO2–H2 and CO2–CH4 collision‐induced absorption (CIA) has previously been significantly underestimated. Contrary to previous expectations, methane could have acted as a powerful greenhouse gas on early Mars due to CO2–CH4 CIA in the critical 250–500 cm−1 spectral window region. In atmospheres of 0.5 bar CO2 or more, percent levels of H2 or CH4 raise annual mean surface temperatures by tens of degrees, with temperatures reaching 273 K for pressures of 1.25–2 bars and 2–10% of H2 and CH4. Methane and hydrogen produced following aqueous alteration of Mars' crust could have combined with volcanically outgassed CO2 to form transient atmospheres of this composition 4.5–3.5 Ga. Our results also suggest that inhabited exoplanets could retain surface liquid water at significant distances from their host stars.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transient reducing greenhouse warming on early Mars

Wordsworth

Kalugina

Lokshtanov

et al. 2017

Geophysical Research Letters

221

324

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“…Our collapse-initiated CH4-release scenario, which considers only CH4 produced by serpentinization, only works if serpentinization occurred on Mars (Lasue et al 2015). However, the fraction of the crust that must undergo serpentinization is small (<0.1%).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, CH4 storage in clathrates has been previously proposed for Mars (Chassefière et al 2016, and references therein), and as a possible source of the CH4 reported by a team using MSL Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) Tunable Laser Spectrometer (TLS) data (Webster et al 2018; but see also Zahnle et al 2011 andCatling 2019). However, CH4 has a <10 6 yr photochemical lifetime (Sagan 1977, Chassefière et al 2016, Lasue et al 2015, Wordsworth et al 2017, Kite et al 2017a. In order to build up the high (≥1%) levels of atmospheric CH4 that are needed for strong warming on Early Mars, CH4 supply must overwhelm photolysis, and so outgassing must be swift.…”

Section: Causes and Effects Of Methane Release On Early Marsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Methane release on Early Mars by atmospheric collapse and atmospheric reinflation

Kite

Mischna

Yung

et al. 2020

Planetary and Space Science

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Please cite this article as: Kite, E.S., Mischna, M.A., Gao, P., Yung, Y.L., Turbet, M., Methane release on Early Mars by atmospheric collapse and atmospheric reinflation, Planetary and Space Science (2020), doi: https://doi. Abstract.A candidate explanation for Early Mars rivers is atmospheric warming due to surface release of H2 or CH4 gas. However, it remains unknown how much gas could be released in a single event. We model the CH4 release by one mechanism for rapid release of CH4 from clathrate. By modeling how CH4-clathrate release is affected by changes in Mars' obliquity and atmospheric composition, we find that a large fraction of total outgassing from CH4 clathrate occurs following Mars' first prolonged atmospheric collapse. This atmosphere-collapse-initiated CH4-release mechanism has three stages. (1) Rapid collapse of Early Mars' carbon dioxide atmosphere initiates a slower shift of water ice from high ground to the poles.(2) Upon subsequent CO2-atmosphere re-inflation and CO2-greenhouse warming, low-latitude clathrate decomposes and releases methane gas. (3) Methane can then perturb atmospheric chemistry and surface temperature, until photochemical processes destroy the methane.Within our model, we find that under some circumstances a Titan-like haze layer would be expected to form, consistent with transient deposition of abundant complex abiotic organic matter on the Early Mars surface. We also find that this CH4release mechanism can warm Early Mars, but special circumstances are required in order to uncork 10 17 kg of CH4, the minimum needed for strong warming. Specifically, strong warming only occurs when the fraction of the hydrate stability zone that is initially occupied by clathrate exceeds 10%, and when Mars' first prolonged atmospheric collapse occurs for atmospheric pressure > 1 bar.

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“…Downward propagation of the boundary between frozen ground and deeper groundwater would trap dissolved methane in methane clathrate, which is water ice with ~6% methane trapped within the cage-like molecular structure of the clathrate ice (e.g., Kvenvolden, 1993;Prieto-Ballesteros et al, 2006). As a result of clathrate genesis, the early martian cryosphere could have become a global methane reservoir (Lasue et al, 2015). Furthermore, the cryosphere would become an impermeable cap for trapped gaseous H 2 and CH 4 , as on Earth (Kvenvolden, 1993).…”

Section: Marsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Faint Young Sun Problem Revisited

Spencer¹

2019

GSAT

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Earth and Mars should have been frozen worlds in their early history because of lower solar luminosity but were not, which challenges our understanding of early atmospheres and surface conditions and/or our understanding of solar evolution. This is known as the "faint young Sun problem." One resolution to the problem is that the Sun was more massive and luminous in its youth before blowing off mass. Astrophysical studies of stellar evolution and behavior, however, including recent analysis of Kepler space-telescope data, indicate that mass loss is both insufficient and occurs too early to allow for a more luminous Sun after ca. 4 Ga. Alternatively, greenhouse gases were surprisingly effective at warming young Earth and Mars. High concentrations of CO 2 with the possible addition of biogenic CH 4 are likely dominant factors promoting open-water conditions on Archean Earth. Evidence of precipitation and flowing water on young Mars, including river valleys thousands of kilometers long, is more problematic. Recent studies indicate that 3-4 Ga river valleys and delta deposits in crater lakes could have been produced in <~10 7 years. Highly transient warm periods during times of favorable orbital parameters possibly led to brief melting under otherwise icy conditions. Seasonal melting and runoff would be more likely with ~1%-10% atmospheric H 2 and CH 4 , perhaps derived from serpentinization of olivine in the martian crust and released from frozen ground by impacts and volcanism, and/or derived directly from volcanic outgassing. The recently recognized effectiveness of hydrogen and methane at absorbing infrared radiation in a thick CO 2 -dominated atmosphere, in a process known as "collision-induced absorption," is probably essential to the solution to the faint young Sun problem for Mars.

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Methane storage capacity of the early martian cryosphere

Cited by 19 publications

References 83 publications

Transient reducing greenhouse warming on early Mars

Transient reducing greenhouse warming on early Mars

Methane release on Early Mars by atmospheric collapse and atmospheric reinflation

The Faint Young Sun Problem Revisited

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