Re: Planet with extra nitrogen

Wasn't it John Park who wrote:

Off the top of my head: more wind erosion

That's not necessarily the case. Erosion isn't caused by the wind itself, but by particles which are lifted by the wind. The ability of wind to lift particles of dust and sand depends mainly on the wind speed. All other things being equal (which they almost certainly won't be) the wind speeds in a denser atmosphere would probably be slower.

The kinetic energy of a lump of wind is 0.5*Mv^2. For the same input energy, if the density goes up by a factor of 10, then the wind speed goes down by a factor of sqrt(10).

Observe the fact that winds on Mars are capable of causing global dust storms, despite the fact that the atmosphere on Mars is about 1% of the density of that on Earth. Because Mars is further from the Sun, the amount of energy driving the winds is far less, but because the atmosphere is so thin the average wind speeds are higher than those on Earth.


Walking through a 10mph wind on this planet would feel something like walking through a 30mph Earth wind, or a 1mph water current.

--
Mike Williams
Gentleman of Leisure
.

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