Earth’s ‘evil twin’ Venus may offer dire warnings about the dangers of unchecked climate change. This blog explores the striking similarities and differences between the two planets, and how studying Venus’ extreme greenhouse effect could provide invaluable insights into the fate that may await our own planet. Venus and Earth are intricately linked, and their divergent paths hold crucial lessons for our understanding of the climate crisis.
Unveiling the Mysteries of Venus’ Hellish Weather
There is little doubt that Earth is warming and that it is largely a result of human-induced greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Earth, however, is not the only planet to have gone through a similar process. Venus, sometimes called Earth’s ‘twin sister’, is the hottest of all the planets in our solar system with temperatures high enough to melt lead.
Venus and Earth were similar in size and mass, and they likely began with a similar appearance. They have both volcanoes, but we cannot say with certainty whether the volcanoes on Venus are still alive. Something, however, appears to have gone terribly wrong in Venus’ development — transforming it into a hellish world we could never survive on. The culprits are no doubt, an extreme runaway greenhouse effect brought about by excess atmospheric greenhouse gases. This also might be incredibly useful to understand the climate issues on Earth if it is happening in Venus.
Earth and Venus are diverging faster than ever
The atmosphere of Venus is 90 times as thick as Earth’s and exerts a similar pressure to that found deep beneath the ocean. On the surface of Venus, temperatures rise to 870°F (465°C), high enough to turn lead into a liquid. On the other hand, the highest temperature recorded on Earth happened to be in Death Valley, California at 134.1°F (56.7°C).
This intense heat on Venus is why the planet is not able to host any liquid water body like Earth. On the other hand, there are growing reasons to believe that Venus once held as much water as Earth, but lost it during runaway greenhouse. As the thermometer rose, liquid water would have boiled off into water vapor in the Venusian air, where it would mingle with other heat-trapping greenhouse gases, leading to even higher temperatures and worsening greenhouse effects.
Takeaway from Venus: Climate Change is Something That Needs to Be Addressed!
Although Venus provides a vivid example of what greenhouse effect gone wild can do, it should not be taken as Earth’s future in any sort of crystal ball mode too. We can, however, say that the story on our neighbor planet is very different from what has happened on Venus as its greenhouse effect is a naturally occurring runaway event and due to humans causing emission of green house gases (GHG) into atmosphere.
That doesn’t mean Venus can’t teach us a little about what happens when we let our greenhouse-gas guard down. The aforementioned DAVINCI mission by NASA will collect critical data on the geology and atmospheric composition of Venus eventually resulting in more insights into how Earth’s closest neighbor turned into a hot, acid bath. By studying Venus, we learn more not only about what the greenhouse effect could do, but the consequences of us continuing to pump out CO2 into our own atmosphere for a few more centuries yet. Our wicked twin could hold the key to the future of our planet.
