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《金星氢元素逃逸》 英语原版出处:Global Climate Change on Venus; New Light on the Solar System; Special Editions; by Mark A. Bullock and David H. Grinspoon THE STUNNING DIFFERENCES between theclimates of Earth and Venus today are intimately linked to the history of wateron these two worlds. Liquid water is the intermediary in reactions of carbondioxide and surface rocks that can form minerals. In addition, water mixed intothe underlying mantle is probably responsible for the low-viscosity layer, orasthenosphere, on which Earth’s lithospheric plates slide. The formation of carbonateminerals and their subsequent descent on tectonic plates prevent carbon dioxidefrom building up. Models of planet formation predict that the two worlds shouldhave been endowed with roughly equal amounts of water, delivered by the impactof icy bodies from the outer solar system. But, when the Pioneer Venus missionwent into orbit in 1978, it measured the ratio of deuterium to ordinaryhydrogen within the water of Venus’s clouds. The ratio was an astonishing 150times the terrestrial value. The most likely explanation is that Venus once hadfar more water and lost it. When water vapor drifted into the upper atmosphere,solar ultraviolet radiation decomposed it into oxygen and either hydrogen or deuterium.Because hydrogen, being lighter, escapes to space more easily, the relativeamount of deuterium increased. Why did this process occur on Venus but not onEarth? In 1969 Andrew P. Ingersoll of the California Institute of Technologyshowed that if the solar energy available to a planet were strong enough, anywater at the surface would rapidly evaporate. The added water vapor wouldfurther heat the atmosphere and set up what he called the runaway greenhouse effect.The process would transport the bulk of the planet’s water into the upperatmosphere, where it would ultimately be decomposed and lost. Later James F.Kasting of Pennsylvania State University and his co-workers developed a moredetailed model of this effect. They estimated that the critical solar flux requiredto initiate a runaway greenhouse was about 40 percent larger than the presentflux on Earth. This value corresponds roughly to the solar flux expected at theorbit of Venus shortly after it was formed, when the sun was 30 percent fainter.An Earth ocean’s worth of water could have fled Venus in the first 30 millionyears of its existence. A shortcoming of this model is that if Venus had athick carbon dioxide atmosphere early on, as it does now, it would haveretained much of its water. The amount of water that is lost depends on howmuch of it can rise high enough to be decomposed—which is less for a planetwith a thick atmosphere. Furthermore, any clouds that developed during theprocess would have reflected sunlight back into space and shut off the runawaygreenhouse. So Kasting’s group also considered a solar flux slightly below thecritical value. In this scenario, Venus had hot oceans and a humidstratosphere. The seas kept levels of carbon dioxide low by dissolving the gasand promoting carbonate formation. With lubrication from water in theasthenosphere, plate tectonics might have operated. In short, Venus possessed climate-stabilizingmechanisms similar to those on Earth today. But the atmosphere’s lower densitycould not prevent water from diffusing to high altitudes. Over 600 millionyears, an ocean’s worth of water vanished. Any plate tectonics shut down,leaving volcanism and heat conduction as the interior’s ways to cool.Thereafter carbon dioxide accumulated in the air. This picture, termed the moistgreenhouse, illustrates the intricate interaction of solar, climate andgeologic change. Atmospheric and surface processes can preserve the status quo,or they can conspire in their own destruction. If the theory is right, Venusonce had oceans—perhaps even life, although it may be impossible to know.
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