Consequences of Earth-like planet with denser atmosphere

Assumptions - atmospheric pressure is 3 atm, but partial pressure of oxygen is comparable to earth, the rest is mostly nitrogen. Planet is tidally locked and insignificantly heavier. (for simplicity reasons, I assume that humans are able to adjust to that pressure, it is generally below the amount that causes nitrogen narcosis)

OK, so what would be consequences for any story happening in such setting?

1) changes in the air transport, airships would become much more practical than on Earth, piston aircrafts would need much shorter runaway (low quality airstrips would become much more acceptable), but anything fast (jets) would have troubles in getting enough oxygen without getting clearly too much friction.

2) Vehicles would really have to be aerodynamic and better slow because of heavy drag (unless there is some good reason to burn fuel more generously). Do I get correctly that a car designed for Earth would for the same speed use 3 times more fuel, while the same fuel efficiency would get while driving $\frac{Earth speed}{\sqrt{3}}$

3) If anyone uses bike on such planet, it would be a recumbent bike.

4) Maximum range of guns - divide by 3 (?) effective presumably not so much reduced because that part of effective gun range is defined by aiming problems, which would not be affected.

5) Reduced effective range of any grenade, bomb etc in to 1/3 of that on Earth (?)

6) More native, airborne creatures. Earth chicken would turn in to a formidable flier. ;) (any design including insect-like, flying fish-like)

7) Milder climate than otherwise because of heat retention and better distribution.

8) Winds with greater force (so boost for any sail ships or wind turbines). But shouldn't the speed actually go down?

9) Water boils in something like 126C degrees.

10) Higher boiling point means less evaporation, less evaporation means less rainfall (how to get any real numbers?)

11) Harder to set fire to anything, as huge quantity of denser air would take this heat away

12) Breathing in cold air would be much more harder, as there would more heat lost with each breath

Anything to correct/add? Any idea how instead of "more"/"less" get some science based numbers?

posted about 8 years ago

Shadow1024‭

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