Mars High Temperatures

I missed this story when it came out last month:

Weather On Mars Surprisingly Warm, Curiosity Rover Finds.
by SPACE.com Staff
Date: 01 October 2012 Time: 07:00 AM ET
"If this warm trend carries on into summer, we might even be able to foresee temperatures in the 20s [Celsius], and that would be really exciting from a habitability point of view," Gómez said. "In the daytimes, we could see temperatures high enough for liquid water on a regular basis. But it’s too soon to tell whether that will happen or whether these warm temperatures are just a blip.”
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Bob Clark

That's my post above, but some reason I keep getting an error message when trying to post to an individual subforum. So had to go through the general web page.

Bob Clark

I absolutely agree. I tried to start a thread on this a few days ago:

[link]

I think the idea of what seem to be perfectly habitable conditions is a game changer, but there has been little or no discussion. I guess there isn't much to say other than, wow, yes, temperatures are above 0 C and possibly as high as 20 C. This is not really new, since we have had orbital measurements of ground temperatures up to 20C near the equator, I think those measurements were from MGS

http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/

Does anyone know where I can get the surface temperature measurements ( not the air temps). I'd like to compare MSL measurements with the measurements by astronomers using thermocouples from the last century. The have peak temp measurements of 40 - 70 degrees F and hire. Modern scientists do not seem to be aware of these measurements, which appear much more credible now. Thanks.

The Winds Still Blow in Thin but Active Martian Atmosphere.

http://www.americaspace.com/?p=33999&cpage=1

It is notable that daytime ground temperatures are above the air temperatures. Eyeballing the ground temperature plot, I estimate the highest ground temperature reached as about 15 C, about 60 F. Depending on the amount of water vapor in the air near the surface this could allow small amounts of water to condense to liquid for short periods.
It would be interesting to find out if the relative humidity would allow water to condense on the surface in the thin Martian atmosphere.

Bob Clark