Other
Scientific paper
May 2009
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009agusm.p23a..07s&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2009, abstract #P23A-07
Other
0325 Evolution Of The Atmosphere (1610, 8125), 0429 Climate Dynamics (1620), 1650 Solar Variability (7537), 5220 Hydrothermal Systems And Weathering On Other Planets, 5405 Atmospheres (0343, 1060)
Scientific paper
The "faint young sun" paradox, the apparent existence of mild climate conditions (especially liquid water) during a time when the standard model of stellar evolution predicts solar luminosity 20-30% less than at present, has proven difficult to resolve. It is widely recognized that higher concentrations of greenhouse gases offer a reasonable mechanism to eliminate the paradox. Suggestions that higher CO2 concentrations could accomplish the necessary warming require concentrations so high that even the sparse early geologic record should exhibit clear effects. The actual concentrations of CO2 in the early atmosphere remain the subject of considerable debate, but there is skepticism that CO2 levels sufficient to resolve the paradox were maintained throughout the Hadean and Archean. Suggestions that either methane or ammonia, considerably more potent greenhouse gases than CO2, have been met with the objection that their rapid rate of destruction by ultraviolet light, and thus removal from the atmosphere, preclude levels high enough to maintain warm conditions for any considerable length of time. Further suggestions that biologic production of methane may have been a factor in maintaining high methane levels may be reasonable for the later Archean, but would be problematical for the earlier Archean unless the necessary organisms had developed very early in Earth's history, a point still under discussion. However, if the early Earth had a large surface reservoir of reduced carbon compounds, whether in solution, suspension, floating or deposited on the ocean floor, a strictly non-biologic mechanism - hydrothermal processing, could produce both methane and ammonia at rates high enough to counteract photochemical destruction in the atmosphere and thus maintain levels sufficient for global warming during the Hadean and Early Archean.
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