Hey, it gets cold in Fairbanks but no where near an average of zero!! Summertime is often uncomfortably warm at eighty or above. I don't think it even averages zero F in the wintertime.

But I digress. You seem well informed on Mars and I too have a pet peve about the reporting of Martian Statistics. Mine has to do with the air pressure. The claim is that the air pressure is too low to support life. But they measure it on the plains. Since the bottom of the so called canals is said to be much deeper than mount everest it stands to reason that the air pressure is quite a bit higher in the bottom of those canyons. Just based on the difference in air pressure between sea level and the top of Mt Everest it looks to me like something pretty close to earth sea level pressure at the deepest part of the canyons.

Do you have any information about the true depth of the canyons and what the air pressure is down there. I understand that Mars is quite a bit smaller than Earth and so pressure gradients and differnetials are understandably different there.

Dan