My Goodness! Apparently Global Warming Is Rife On Mars...?

Question

...what taxes can we raise to force the Martians to reduce their carbon footprint?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1720024.ece

Mars is being hit by rapid climate change and it is happening so fast that the red planet could lose its southern ice cap, writes Jonathan Leake.

Scientists from Nasa say that Mars has warmed by about 0.5C since the 1970s. This is similar to the warming experienced on Earth over approximately the same period.

Since there is no known life on Mars it suggests rapid changes in planetary climates could be natural phenomena.

The mechanism at work on Mars appears, however, to be different from that on Earth. One of the researchers, Lori Fenton, believes variations in radiation and temperature across the surface of the Red Planet are generating strong winds.

In a paper published in the journal Nature, she suggests that such winds can stir up giant dust storms, trapping heat and raising the planet’s temperature.

Answer 1

Great question, except using "rife" in this context seems a bit redundant (I mean, global warming already implies the phenomenon is widespread, so calling global warming on a single planet "rife" is, well, redundant (did I say that already?).  Syntactical carping aside and placing my tongue in cheek, yes, we must force the Martians to raise their taxes and reduce their carbon footprint.  I'm so glad you brought this issue to our attention because we were focused on the science and technical side of things.  Thank you for bringing this political issue, which you have framed so cogently, into the debate.  Nobody else has asked this question before and it is hysterically funny.  Perhaps several other people over the coming weeks can ask other versions of it that we will all find as amusing.  

Let's see what we have for you as prizes ... a lucky rabbit's foot, a bottle of Dr. Feelgood's Magic Herb Elixer for gout, piles, and hair loss, and a thank you note made using ink stamps and special "heirloom" paper purchased from a trendy store like Stampa Barbara.  That's quite a haul, others will be jealous.

Answer 2

Imagine that! We gotta help educate those martians.

Answer 3

Like i am bothered about mars.

Answer 4

Your questions are old and stale and have been answered many times before.  Try to keep up or use the Discover button.

Answer 5

According to the researcher, Lori Fenton:

"Our Nature article had some press coverage, and some who heard the news would like to attribute our modeled warming (of 0.65° C or 1.2° F) over the 20 year period to changes in solar output, but our work doesn't involve any such changes. The warming we have modeled is caused by changes on the surface of Mars, rather than by any changes in the Sun. Furthermore, the climate forcing process we have identified is caused by the redistribution of bright dust over a darker surface, a process which does not occur on Earth (at least not to such a magnitude that it influences the global climate system). Earth does undergo albedo changes that impact the climate, but the controlling processes are quite different -- such as changes in cloud cover, sea ice, and vegetation. Thus the warming we have modeled is caused by a process that is unique to Mars, and nothing in our work can be used to make inferences about climate change on Earth. I hope this clears up any confusion to the layperson."

http://humbabe.arc.nasa.gov/~fenton/

The paper is here for anyone who wants to see the original research without the misleading media spin:

http://humbabe.arc.nasa.gov/~fenton/pdf/...

I was curious to see how the temperature change was measured, what the period of measurement was, and how the change was determined to be global (since these are sometimes topics of discussion for earth warming).

"The simulations also predict a net annual global warming of surface air temperatures by 0.65 K, enhancing dust lifting by increasing the likelihood of dust devil generation."

"In addition, predicted increases in summertime air temperatures at high southern latitudes would contribute to the rapid and steady scarp retreat that has been observed in the south polar residual ice for the past four Mars years6–8."

So the temperatures are predicted by albedo measurements and a model to estimate temperatures from them.  The theory is supported by observed reductions in ice at the Martian south pole.

It's an interesting theory, but a model and observed regional confirmation over the course of 3 or 4 Martian years does not seem to be an open and shut case that Mars is undergoing global or long term climate changes.  The researcher herself clarifies that "nothing in our work can be used to make inferences about climate change on Earth", so even if Mars were warming, it's no consolation for us.

Answer 6

I find it amazing that the deniers huff & puff about there being no or little evidence for global warming (on Earth) and yet can get hot under the collar that Mars warming is somehow proof we are not responsible for what is happening here. Mars has a totally alien climate no water massive dust storms that cover half the planet. From a science point of view the link below to newscientist  is pretty good at showing some of these 'myths'

Answer 7

Also on several other planets. But hey, do not let this derail the leftist agenda. They need your and my tax money.

Answer 8

Easy enough to answer...a Ad Valorem tax, why not it belongs to our galaxy....Let's don't leave anything out when it comes to taxes.Air,water,food.......................

Answer 9

I'm glad Benjamin went to the trouble of showing you all the various errors in your argument, because I'm really tired of this one too.

I suggest you stick to the Politics section.  Here in the Environment section, scientific evidence is a prerequisite for a valid argument.  Political rhetoric just doesn't cut it.

Too bad you didn't read the whole article (it's not exactly a novel!), because you seem to have missed the critical information.  You even quoted it in your question!

"The mechanism at work on Mars appears, however, to be different from that on Earth. One of the researchers, Lori Fenton, believes variations in radiation and temperature across the surface of the Red Planet are generating strong winds.

In a paper published in the journal Nature, she suggests that such winds can stir up giant dust storms, trapping heat and raising the planet’s temperature."

Answer 10

The "but half the planets in the solar system are warming, and Triton Too!" argument has been debunked so many times that I will not bother to do it here. If interested, here is the best debunking of them all:

http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2007/...

I think that it is funny that global warming deniers often point to climate change on other planets to deny that global warming is happening on this one. Also "warming on another planet would be an interesting coincidence but it would not necessarily have the same cause."

Given all of the recent studies published on solar output, it is amazing how many people still blame the recent global warming on the sun. The reality is that solar output (this includes electromagnetic energy from the entire spectrum, as well as cosmic rays) has not increased during recent decades. The following are excerpts from recent research on the link between recent global warming and solar activity (the first report linked is the most liberal):

Scafetta, 2006

"We estimate that the sun contributed as much as 45–50% of the 1900–2000 global warming, and 25–35% of the 1980–2000 global warming. These results, while confirming that anthropogenic-added climate forcing might have progressively played a dominant role in climate change during the last century.

http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/20...

Foukal, 2006

"The variations measured from spacecraft since 1978 are too small to have contributed appreciably to accelerated global warming over the past 30 years."

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v44...

http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/mpa/publi...

Foukal, 2006

"Our results imply that, over the past century, climate change due to human influences must far outweigh the effects of changes in the Sun's brightness. … Variations of this magnitude are too small to have contributed appreciably to the accelerated global warming observed since the mid-1970s, according to the study, and there is no sign of a net increase in brightness over the period."

http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2006/b...

Lockwood, 2007

"The analysis shows that global warming since 1985 has been caused neither by an increase in solar radiation nor by a decrease in the flux of galactic cosmic rays."

http://www.petedecarlo.com/files/448008a...

http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/media/pro...

Lockwood, 2007

“There is considerable evidence for solar influence on the Earth’s pre-industrial climate and the Sun may well have been a factor in post-industrial climate change in the first half of the last century. Here we show that over the past 20 years, all the trends in the Sun that could have had an influence on the Earth’s climate have been in the opposite direction to that required to explain the observed rise in global mean temperatures.”

http://publishing.royalsociety.org/media...

Solanki, 2004

"Researchers at the MPS have shown that the Sun can be responsible for, at most, only a small part of the warming over the last 20-30 years. They took the measured and calculated variations in the solar brightness over the last 150 years and compared them to the temperature of the Earth. Although the changes in the two values tend to follow each other for roughly the first 120 years, the Earth’s temperature has risen dramatically in the last 30 years while the solar brightness has not appreciably increased in this time."

http://www.mpg.de/english/illustrationsD...

Ammann, 2007

“Although solar and volcanic effects appear to dominate most of the slow climate variations within the past thousand years, greenhouse gas effects have dominated the last century.”

http://www.aimes.ucar.edu/MEETINGS/2005_...

et. cetera

Other than the fact that such a hypothesis is not backed by observation, there are a few problems additional problems with the assumption that the majority of recent global warming is caused by the sun. (1) Most importantly, such an argument completely ignores the fact that the physics of increasing greenhouse gases concentrations can account for recent global warming.

(2) The warmest years in history, 1998, 2005, and 2007 have occurred near the "solar minimum" troughs of the 11-year solar cycle. Such an observation might suggest that the small increases in solar irradiance cannot be the main force that is driving recent global warming. The most liberal estimates of recent increases in solar irradiance is a smaller amount than the difference in irradiance between "solar maximum" and "solar minimum" of the 11-years solar cycle (0.1 %.)

(3) Increases in solar activity should warm the entire atmosphere, right? Cooling in the lower stratosphere has been observed during recent decades.