<p>Venus does radiate away heat, but not enough to prevent the surface and lower atmosphere heating to 460C. Too late to prevent overheating, it has already overheated. In the long term, its atmosphere will gradually leak away into space, reducing the present pressure of 90 Earth atmospheres. Exactly how far this process will have gone in 5 billion years' time when the sun swells up to become a red giant is impossible to say. When the sun becomes a red giant, Venus will be inside its tenuous outer layers and therefore scorched by much higher temperatures than it has now, probably reduced to a ball of molten rock spiralling inwards towards the sun's interior.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-01-08T06:33:57.487Z
the temparature on venus is in equilibrium right now,but as the sun gets hotter so do venus. http://www.astronomy.com/magazine/ask-astro/2018/03/temperature-of-venus
trond hansen
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-01-05T15:08:18.300Z
2020-01-05T15:08:18.300Z
Michael Walsby
<p>I make no claim to be an expert on Venus, and I welcome correction from those who are, but I think there's a misunderstanding in the question.</p>

<p>"Venus... won't let any of the heat absorbed from the Sun out by radiation" is false. It must be, due to fairly fundamental physical laws.</p>

<p>Now, I'm not sure whether any energy emitted from the <em>surface</em> of Venus reaches space. I imagine that some fraction probably does, but I could be wrong - it could be that the atmosphere is entirely opaque to the wavelengths radiated from the ground. However, the atmosphere itself is warm, and hence the atmosphere itself radiates, partly into space. This is different to the way things mostly work on Earth, where the atmosphere is mostly (but decreasingly) transparent to the wavelengths radiated from the ground.</p>

<p>At least on short timescales, then, there's a balance between incoming and outgoing energy, and Venus is in equilibrium. It won't keep getting warmer forever, unless something changes to change the temperature of that equilibrium.</p>

<p>By analogy, Earth was in equilibrium until the industrial revolution. Since then things have been increasingly disrupted by a massive increase in greenhouse gas concentrations. Once we stop increasing GHG concentrations, it will warm until it reaches a new equilibrium at a higher temperature and then stop. It won't keep getting warmer forever.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-01-09T22:32:16.983Z
The last part in your answer is technically wrong: We did not change the equilibrium temperature, we keep changing it. Earth's temperature has a very low optical depth for most relevant wavelengths, so the timescale to establish a new radiative equilibrium is about 10-20 days. If we removed all excess $CO_2$ from the atmosphere NOW, things would normalize quickly. On Venus, this timescale is about 30 years, as it is massively optically thick at all wavelengths, and energy transport takes more time.
AtmosphericPrisonEscape
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-01-10T07:27:03.150Z
@AtmosphericPrisonEscape Thanks! I've edited - is it better now?
Semidiurnal Simon
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-01-07T17:26:22.690Z
2020-01-10T07:26:51.133Z
2020-01-10T07:26:51.133Z
Semidiurnal Simon
<p>Venus is a runaway greenhouse planet, so it won't let any of the heat absorbed from the Sun out by radiation, yet it will still take rays of energy from the Sun. So what will happen to Venus? Will it overheat? And if it will overheat, what will actually happen to it? I couldn't find any speculations over the internet...</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-01-05T16:48:06.577Z
@ebv the latest astronomical news say that venus have had volcanic activity during the las ten years https://www.space.com/venus-may-have-active-volcanoes-new-evidence.html
trond hansen
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-01-07T19:19:09.767Z
Most of us would say Venus is already overheated :-)  But your question is based on a false premise: conditions on Venus have just raised the equilibrium temperature.
jamesqf
<planetary-science>
Will Venus eventually overheat? When it happens, what will happen to it exactly?
Deha Ortasarı
# Will Venus eventually overheat? When it happens, what will happen to it exactly?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2020-01-05)

Venus is a runaway greenhouse planet, so it won't let any of the heat absorbed from the Sun out by radiation, yet it will still take rays of energy from the Sun. So what will happen to Venus? Will it overheat? And if it will overheat, what will actually happen to it? I couldn't find any speculations over the internet...

**Tags:** planetary-science

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: @ebv the latest astronomical news say that venus have had volcanic activity during the las ten years https://www.space.com/venus-may-have-active-volcanoes-new-evidence.html  
> **username_2**: Most of us would say Venus is already overheated :-)  But your question is based on a false premise: conditions on Venus have just raised the equilibrium temperature.  

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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2020-01-05. Score: 1

Venus does radiate away heat, but not enough to prevent the surface and lower atmosphere heating to 460C. Too late to prevent overheating, it has already overheated. In the long term, its atmosphere will gradually leak away into space, reducing the present pressure of 90 Earth atmospheres. Exactly how far this process will have gone in 5 billion years' time when the sun swells up to become a red giant is impossible to say. When the sun becomes a red giant, Venus will be inside its tenuous outer layers and therefore scorched by much higher temperatures than it has now, probably reduced to a ball of molten rock spiralling inwards towards the sun's interior.

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: the temparature on venus is in equilibrium right now,but as the sun gets hotter so do venus. http://www.astronomy.com/magazine/ask-astro/2018/03/temperature-of-venus  

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### Answer by username_4 on 2020-01-07. Score: 1

I make no claim to be an expert on Venus, and I welcome correction from those who are, but I think there's a misunderstanding in the question.

"Venus... won't let any of the heat absorbed from the Sun out by radiation" is false. It must be, due to fairly fundamental physical laws.

Now, I'm not sure whether any energy emitted from the *surface* of Venus reaches space. I imagine that some fraction probably does, but I could be wrong - it could be that the atmosphere is entirely opaque to the wavelengths radiated from the ground. However, the atmosphere itself is warm, and hence the atmosphere itself radiates, partly into space. This is different to the way things mostly work on Earth, where the atmosphere is mostly (but decreasingly) transparent to the wavelengths radiated from the ground.

At least on short timescales, then, there's a balance between incoming and outgoing energy, and Venus is in equilibrium. It won't keep getting warmer forever, unless something changes to change the temperature of that equilibrium.

By analogy, Earth was in equilibrium until the industrial revolution. Since then things have been increasingly disrupted by a massive increase in greenhouse gas concentrations. Once we stop increasing GHG concentrations, it will warm until it reaches a new equilibrium at a higher temperature and then stop. It won't keep getting warmer forever.

> **Comments:**
> **username_5**: The last part in your answer is technically wrong: We did not change the equilibrium temperature, we keep changing it. Earth's temperature has a very low optical depth for most relevant wavelengths, so the timescale to establish a new radiative equilibrium is about 10-20 days. If we removed all excess $CO_2$ from the atmosphere NOW, things would normalize quickly. On Venus, this timescale is about 30 years, as it is massively optically thick at all wavelengths, and energy transport takes more time.  
> **username_4**: @username_5 Thanks! I've edited - is it better now?  

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