It's the Sun, stupid!

[darrelx]

More recent observations indicate that Mars' south pole is continuing to melt. "It's evaporating right now at a prodigious rate," says Michael Malin, principal investigator for the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC). The pits in the ice are growing by about 3 meters per year. Malin states that conditions on Mars are not currently conductive to the

Comments

[martes]

We better pray to whatever deity is out there that it's not the sun. If we're causing climate change, there's a vague hope we might be able to stop it. If the sun is causing it, then there's not a goddamn thing we can do about it and we're all screwed.

[darrelx]

Best evidence is that it's cyclical, and there's probably not a thing we can do about it, except adapt.

...We're good at adapting. We survived a mini ice-age just 600 years ago.

[martes]

I don't think any of us would have had fun living 600 years ago. Life was ugly, brutal and short then. There were also a lot less people, and more room to move somewhere else when land became incabable of supporting life

[esprix]

Since there's a sizable amount of scientific evidence that global warming is at the very least something that future generations will have to worry about, do you really think it's appropriate to just say, "Never mind, we'll be dead and gone, let *them* figure it out?"

[jbriggs]

Please refer to the following reports. You can easily deduce that "Its the science, stupid!"

Changes in Solar Brightness Too Weak to Explain Global Warming
Variations in Solar Luminosity and their effect on the Earth's climate

This graph demonstrates that the Earths temperature has been declining as we enter(ed) a new Ice age until about 1750, which directly coincides with the start of the Industrial revolution.

HTH d^;

[darrelx]

I perused your articles, and provide one for you to read:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/03/030321075236.htm

"Although the inferred increase of solar irradiance in 24 years, about 0.1 percent, is not enough to cause notable climate change, the trend would be important if maintained for a century or more. Satellite observations of total solar irradiance have obtained a long enough record (over 24 years) to begin looking for this effect."Paraphrasing the rest of the article: We've only been tracking the TSI (Total Solar Irradiance) since 1970, and even though that's only increased by .1% (not enough on its own to explain global warming) if extrapolated as a trend over the last Century or more can easily explain the warming through the 19th and 20th centuries

[jbriggs]

Nasa drops Climate Monitoring from its Mission Statement reports that due to political pressure NASA was no longer to study Climate Change.

Furthermore, NASA shelves climate satellites reports that NASA has drastically reduced its study of climate change due to political pressure.

Political appointee Michael Griffin, not a scientist, has issued a gag order on NASA scientists prohibiting them from speaking about climate change. here he draws criticism from scientists. "NASA's position is that it provides scientific data on the issue, but policymakers are the ones who decide."

I therefore wouldn't put much faith in what NASA says on the issue until they get an independent administrator without a political agenda.

[darrelx]

There is no doubt that this is a highly debated issue, with not enough evidence to PROVE either side. However, your cites to articles are ridiculous...

The first two articles you cited have headlines that don't even apply to the topic covered in the article. The headlines themselves are biased commentary on the article... and the meat of the article doesn't really support your opinion. All the articles refer to is that NASA's primary mission has changed to be more in line with the president's policy of space exploration... the headlines are B.S. spin-doctoring from a biased editor.

The third article you cited says that Griffin's position is that global warming may not be a bad thing -- who are we to say that the current climate is the best climate for humans? (paraphrased) Then it cites a few people criticizing him for that position

[esprix]

How can you compare Mars, with no atmosphere and millions of miles closer to the sun, to Earth, with an atmosphere and millions of miles farther from the sun? Methinks you're comparing apples to, well, something other than apples.

[esprix]

(Those are, of course, just two of the many differences between the planets. Shall I start comparing the Big Red Spot on Jupiter to Hurricane Andrew or something?)

martian atmosphere...

[darrelx]

Umm... the Moon has no atmosphere, but Mars certainly *does* have one... it's just a bit thinner and a lot colder than ours.

:P

[darrelx]

Oh... and Mars (Sol-4) is further from the Sun than the Earth (Sol-3) is, not closer.

Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Xena.

[lizetta]

I don't know why I'm even posting this, but here goes.

Yes, the climate of the earth has always changed. Minor fluctuations are normal, and species are expected to adapt to them. Large scale climate changes have also happened in the history of this planet. The issue here is that this change is happening in a geologically insignificant time frame. Micro-evolution takes place over hundreds, if not thousands of generations. The time frame of a single life is insignificant here.

We have no idea if this change on Mars is normal. We cannot say that this is in fact a change, and not part of the planets cycle. Since Mars does not appear to actually have any life on, these rapid changes might be normal. They might even be the cause of this lack of life.

[roycalbeck]

Mars doesn't have a "cycle". It doesn't, as you've noted, have life, and in fact it never had anything approaching an ecosystem.

We DO know that Mars has polar ice caps, and that those caps are NOW melting. Therefore the planet was cooler in the past than it is in the present.

The simple fact is that Mars exhibits absolutely NONE of the phenomena currently attributed to "global warming": population, major sources of atmospheric pollution, etc. Mars doesn't even have as much volcanic activity as Earth does.

Hence, Ockham's Razor comes into effect: if it isn't being warmed by anything on the planet itself, then it is being warmed by the only other source of heat in the solar system, that being the sun.

[lizetta]

Mars doesn't have a cycle? And you know this how? Can you tell me what size these polar ice caps were 1000 years ago? How about 100 years ago? 10? How many ice ages has Mars had? What was their duration? Is this change in the pits greater than normal? The ice caps there aren't even formed in the same ways that ice caps here are, and they're not chemically the same, being made mostly of CO2 and not H20. I don't see how you can create any correlations with so little data.

[roycalbeck]

Mars doesn't have a cycle because there is nothing there which CAUSES a cycle. You are misplacing the source of the cycle: the sun, which does in fact have known, observed, and measurable changes that provide evidence of a cycle.

"How many ice ages has Mars had?"

Precisely as many as Earth has had, for the same reason: changes in solar activity.

"Is this change in the pits greater than normal?"

What criteria would you possibly list for ABNORMAL changes?

"The ice caps there aren't even formed in the same ways that ice caps here are"

Ice is universally created the same way: by lowering temperatures. It's eliminated in the same way: by raising temperatures. Melting polar caps, regardless of what they're made of, are universally indicative of rising temperatures. The freezing point of a given material doesn't change merely because that material is on Mars.

Now, unless you have an alternate theory as to why the temperatures on Mars are rising, then we're left with solar activity.

[buddykat]

Congress introduced several bills today to limit emissions from factories, cars, etc... with mandatory compliance by 2030. That's just what we need: something else to make it harder on businesses in the U.S. to compete... NOT!

Call your Representative... Call your Senator... Tell them: "It's the Sun, stupid!"I don't care one way or the other if they are using global warming as justification for these bills; they are flat out good for the environment in general. I personally *like* to breathe clean air that I don't feel like I'm chewing, I like being able to breathe without needing a respirator or mask to filter out nasty particulates

[roycalbeck]

I do agree that reduction of pollution is a good thing, and I fully support it. I'm sure Darrel does too. What we're against is developing national policies that pooch the economy in the name of "feelgood" ideology.

[darrelx]

That's a better way of putting it than I did... my statement was a bit more off-the-cuff, but yeah, you got my meaning

[jbriggs]

At least we agree on these things (^: