[indoordin0saur]

In discussions I've read on planetary climate modelling one idea is that if Venus had an atmosphere like Earth's but 50%+ thicker and an ocean covering 70% of it (like Earth) you'd get an ideal situation. Because of the strong sunlight and slow spin you'd get a tendency for thick storm clouds continuously covering whatever part of the planet was experiencing mid-day, shielding the planet from the strongest and hottest rays of the (60% stronger) sunlight. The warmth would convect to the night side keeping things from getting too cold. Depending on the conditions it's possible that below-freezing temperatures wouldn't even be common in the depth of the night.

The long night seems like a problem for life but forests already thrive in the warmer parts of the near-arctic. And in times past even Antarctica had tropical rainforests despite experiencing a polar night. Another idea I had was building a ring around the planet of dark material, perhaps of left over carbon after we cleaned up the CO2 rich atmosphere. The dark ring would provide shade to certain parts of the planet during the day and would reflect light for the long night.

[shiroiushi]

I've read about many terraforming ideas such as these, and I really think they're kinda pointless, because it would probably be MUCH easier to just build O'Neal cylinders. With those, you can create artificial habitats with the exact parameters you want, instead of trying to change an entire planet so be somewhat habitable by humans.

[indoordin0saur]

The idea of living in a can floating in space, while conceptually cool, just does not seem like an appealing lifestyle to me. They also seem very fragile. One explosion, pebble-sized meteorite, failed life-support system or out of control ship could rip a hole in the structure and kill everyone on board. I'd much prefer a planet where there could be some degree of freedom.

[justinclift]

> thick storm clouds

Sounds like a sure fire recipe for a (permanent?) super intense electrical storm in right that spot.

Might make that specific latitude uninhabitable due to the planet turning. Though it could be worth the trade off, due to there being a bunch of available land on the planet in other latitudes.

If you have some truly huge arrays of super capacitors such a permanent electrical storm might even be useful. :)

[indoordin0saur]

Sounds sorta fun IMO. With the slower rotation of the planet and the rotational winds being slower maybe there would be less lightning. IDK though, I'm talking out of my ass.