JamesG wrote:
You would need those rates and values anyway, which at this point are purely hypothetical/theoretical.
Yes, absolutely. Without the numbers and the equations this tells us nothing so far. I'm just trying to narrow down what it is that we need to know.
In addition to what I said in my last post, we also need some sort of mathematical model for the removal of gas molecules from the upper parts of the column by the solar wind. And unfortunately, because of the weaker gravity, more of the gas in the column will be at high altitudes (and thus exposed to possible removal by the solar wind) than would be the case if Mars had the same gravity as Earth.
JamesG wrote:
Also CO2 is denser and displaces O2 (and N2 which is a by far bigger component of an Earth-like atmosphere). So unless you could magically exchange Mar's current atmosphere with one from Earth's, what will happen is that as you convert or add O2, N2, even by decomposition of native CO2, the lighter O2 is going to float to the top and be lost first. And O2 loves to be broken down into ozone, link up with a nice solar wind hydrogen ion and elope. So the hole in the bucket will get bigger the longer and faster you convert it. If you aren't careful and set up some irreversible run away process, at the end you my leave Mars with nothing but a trace atmosphere of N2 and whatever is still leaking out of the rocks...
Now this I'm not worried about. In a perfect gas, the molecules are too far apart to interact with one another. My understanding is that even at atmospheric pressure at sea level on Earth, the atmosphere still behaves pretty much like a perfect gas. Its components don't interact much. They don't displace one another, for instance.
You can see this from the CO2. Mars has more CO2 in its atmosphere than the Earth, but not very much more. Maybe twice as much? On Earth, the CO2 in the atmosphere doesn't displace the oxygen and nitrogen away from the planet's surface. If it did, we would all have suffocated by now. Instead, all the gases are intermingled nicely and I can't see why they wouldn't do the same on Mars if we added lots of extra oxygen and nitrogen there.