Revisiting the scattering greenhouse effect of CO2 ice clouds
Carbon dioxide ice clouds are thought to play an important role for cold terrestrial planets with thick CO2 dominated atmospheres. Various previous studies showed that a scattering greenhouse effect by carbon dioxide ice clouds could result in a massive warming of the planetary surface. However, all of these studies only employed simplified two-stream radiative transfer schemes to describe the anisotropic scattering. Using accurate radiative transfer models with a general discrete ordinate method, this study revisits this important effect and shows that the positive climatic impact of carbon dioxide clouds was strongly overestimated in the past. The revised scattering greenhouse effect can have important implications for the early Mars, but also for planets like the early Earth or the position of the outer boundary of the habitable zone.
Abstract Many human operations have created a large population of small orbital debris in near Earth environment. The threat they represent for satellites is a major factor for the preparation of future space missions. Several experiments devoted to the study of this environment, as well as various materials exposed to space, have been retrieved in the past few years. The analysis of the results shows some differences with previous modeling. Comparison with data from LDEF and from EURECA give some insight in the long term evolution of particle size distribution. Chemical identification of particle remnants inside craters is difficult but provides valuable information on the origin of the impactors. Permanent monitoring of environment is obviously needed, especially for the type of orbits where data are presently scarce ie. heliosynchronous and geostationary orbits.