So You Think Its Colder Than Mars

So here we are in the midst of a winter where much of North America is experiencing colder than normal temperatures. And if there is one thing people love more than complaining about how cold winter is, its using hyperbole to express their opinion of how cold winter is.

With those two truths in mind, its seems every news organization in the world is taking a turn at comparing various cold cities to Mars; not surprisingly, a lot of these reports then get shared on social networks where its stated as "OMG its colder here than on Mars!"

Clearly the Discovery Science logo is shaped like a teardrop
because they endeavor to make scientists cry.

First of all, while the news reports usually mention that the temperature in question is the daily report from Curiosity, that is frequently lost when the stories go viral. Mars is a planet. Saying the temperature on Mars right now is x, is a lot like saying the temperature right now on Earth is x, except worse. Because of the thin atmosphere on Mars it experiences a greater of temperature variance than Earth; the temperature variance on Earth is about 145 degrees Celsius, while on Mars its about 175 degrees Celsius.

While the average temperature on Mars is about -63 C compared to +15 C on Earth, there is a lot of overlap in those two ranges; in the Martian summer it can get as hot as +35 C. Remember, many astronomers place Mars in the habitable zone of our solar system.

Dark green is definitely habitable,
light green may be habitable.

Second of all, before you can place any weight on weather reports coming from Curiosity you need to understand where it is on Mars. Curiosity is in the Gale crater, which is located at 4.6°S and 137.4°E; Curiosity is in the tropics of Mars. Now, admittedly it is almost the start winter for the southern hemisphere of Mars, but, just like Earth, areas near the equator are less impacted by the change in seasons.

Third, its important to note that what's almost always being compared is the daily high at the Gale crater to the daily low at whatever city is the latest victim. That's hardly fair as it isn't comparing like to like. The daily lows at the Gale crater in the past week have ranged from -84 C to -125 C (aka from colder than anywhere on earth to much colder than it has ever been on earth).

So, its awesome that people are paying attention to Mars and that someone is actually looking at the Curiosity weather reports (you can see them here ). But bragging (or complaining) that your city got colder than Mars is absurd unless you live somewhere that has really mild winters. And if you live somewhere that has really mild winters, complaining about how cold your winter is this year is just asking for a Canadian to come kick your ass.