Surface Temperature

Martian average temperature is roughly 210 degrees Kelvin (-55 degrees Celsius), with a high temperature of 3,000 degrees Kelvin (27 degrees Celsius) and a low temperature of 140 degrees Kelvin (-133 degrees Celsius). It is believed that at one time Mars was actually much warmer than it is today, when for some reason, about 3.8 billion years ago the planet suddenly reached below freezing temperature. Though Mars is only 1.52 AU from the sun (Earth = 1AU), it's atmospheric pressure is less than one one-hundredth that of Earth's atmosphere. This accounts for part of why Mars is so much cooler then its neighbor.

If we thicken the Martian Atmosphere with greenhouse gases to trap the suns energy, like our atmosphere here on earth does, then we can have hopes of raising the temperature to more hospitable conditions. This too would assist with the melting of the frozen water ice at the polar caps and beneath the Martian soil. Thusly Mars would become a more hospitable environment for some of earth's extremophiles. Only after we acheive this planetary warming, will hopes of terraforming Mars begin to form into reality.

The image at right shows the idea behind warming Mars through the use of greenhouse gasses. As the diagram shows, after releasing CO2 from the Martian Polar Caps by melting ice with artificial radiative forcing, the atmosphere will begin to thicken. This process, known as outgassing, is easily understood in the second portion of the image. Finnaly, the last diagram shows how a thicker atmosphere increases the Greenhouse effect, traping both heat and gasses needed to support life on Mars

This is one on the most important things to accomplish when terraforming a planet like Mars. Hopefully one day we will be able to melt the polar Ice caps and release the carbon dioxide and warm the atmosphere.