you can all suck it... the only movie better than water world was postman.

Headline made me laugh my ass off.

Uhhh, am I missing something here?

ftfa: The scientists calculated that the water would form a 36-foot-deep ocean of sorts if spread over the Martian globe.

also ftfa: That's a lot of water, but not enough to account for the flowing streams thought to meander along Mars' surface in the past.

Uh, What? Enough to cover the planet in 36 feet of water, but not enough to account for some streams. Somebody's got some 'splainin to do, cause that's some funny math in my book.

CobaltBlue

Maybe because 36 feet is not deep at all and probably wouldn't be able to cause the massive trench-like "streams" I presume they are talking about?

/Yeah, I think it's worded poorly, too..

OMG GLOBAL WARMING!!

The answer to making Mars habitable is easy, Nuke Mars. Get all the water into the atmosphere. The get ChemLawn up there to fertilize the hell out the place. Profit!

(yes I know... it will need to be seeded)

The problem here is that the depth of 36 feet assumes that Mars is a perfect sphere. Kinda like if earth was a perfect sphere the globe would be covered in 250 ft of water (reference?).

As it is, there is quite a lot of topography. If the ice melted, and if it didn't immeadiatly refreeze and if it were allowed to pool in the topographic lows it would look something like this conveniently shaded topographic map of Mars:

DaCricket: Really. I don't know/remember if I've read anything else by him, maybe I'll have to check out some of his other stuffs.

Oh dear god yes. Especially his uplift books and Earth. Not that anyone wil be reading this, but still.

Time to start staking out some beach front property.

Tin Cup?

Running a-puck: Especially his uplift books

Yes, yes, and yes again.

Now if Kevin Costner melted we would be on to something.

A baseball diamond?

lol, some moron didn't read... mars has asteroids not moons.

see, the EU douchewads changed the definitions.