A question here, behaviour of water on Mars |
A question here, behaviour of water on Mars |
May 24 2007, 12:38 AM
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 58 Joined: 17-September 06 Member No.: 1150 |
A question here
There are signs that in the past there was liquid water on Mars. So lets assume thats true. Since the gravity on Mars is much lower than on Earth, so how does water (waves) behave on Mars compared to Earth? Someone did say, that waves would have been much higher but also much slower. Is this true? Does anyone have an animation where you can see a waive on Earth in comparsion to a wave on Mars? Thanks |
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May 25 2007, 04:52 PM
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Dublin Correspondent Group: Admin Posts: 1799 Joined: 28-March 05 From: Celbridge, Ireland Member No.: 220 |
On earth the average atmospheric pressure of ~101kPa is a pretty powerful hydrodynamic pump - it is equivalent to a 10m water column. The martian atmosphere is only 1% of that - even accounting for the lower gravity there the equivalent water column on Mars is only 23cm (at most). Large storm surges like the one you describe require a low pressure zone surrounded by a high pressure zone all over the same body of water. Say we had such an item (e.g. the hypothetical northern Martian ocean) then even an extreme hurricane like storm with a 20% internal pressure drop would only be capable of pushing a surge of a handful of centimeters.
It must be said though that _if_ there was an ocean like that then the atmosphereic pressure would have had to be significantly higher - at these sort of pressures it would just boil away. If that was close to Earth like pressures then the storm surges would be massive - 2-3x what we see on Earth from a similar storm. |
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