http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,5470.0.htmlIan came upon an interesting situation at the end of this fiction game he was playing/writing that likely should be addressed.
In a situation where a planetary bombardment causes extreme temperature decrease due to dust concentrations in the atmosphere the oceans subsequently froze and caused an increase in albedo. The albedo increase caused the planetary surface temperature to plummet. I am not sure what the original temperature was but the oceans freezing dropped the temperature from a reported -38.27oC down to -68.9oC. Unless Ian responds with the original temperature information I have to make the assumption that the planetary temperature was likely a positive C amount to start with. For arguments sake lets just say it was 0C (maybe it was a race of Abominable Snowmen?)
The following illogical sequence of events then occurred: Planet is habitable at 0C, planetary bombardment occurs and a dust plume blots out the sun, surface temperature plummets as the concentrated dust in the atmosphere reflect the solar energy from reaching the planetary surface and starves the surface of the warming effects of it's host star. Once the temperature decreases into the -30C range the oceans freeze. The ice increases planetary albedo and the temperature drops an additional 30 points to -60C.
If the dust was blocking the suns energy from reaching the planetary surface how exactly is the increase in surface albedo playing such a significant and immediate role in planetary surface temperature? Should there not be a muting of the intensity of the effect based on the preexisting effects of the dust?