What's causing the global warming on Mars?

Question

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. Okay, since there are no humans to rape the planet Mars, why is it also experiencing a similar rate of "global warming"? Are there hidden martians who are driving SUVs?

Answer 1

the cause of the global warming on mars is the cooling of the core and starts to fail including the magnetic field, its atmosphere, the mantle and the outer core, and lastly the ozone layer.

Answer 2

All those rockets that we sent there are releasing CO2 into the martian atmosphere.  Those things are SUVs you know.

Answer 3

Small changes in its orbital motion and axial tilt.

Answer 4

Martian SUV's. Those b******s.

Answer 5

It is Americans, we are to blame for every problem in the world and galaxy.  At least that is what the waco Liberals want you to believe.    Please watch the Global Warming Special on May 2nd on Headline News (204 on Direct TV) at 7:00, 9:00 or Midnight Eastern Time.  YOu will get the truth in this one hour special.  This is way overhyped and just another reason to tax us to death and force us to buy the bogus carbon credits.  Global Warming is a trojan horse for Socialism, wake up Americans. Global warming is at the fore front because politicians found how to use a new platform to get re-elected. The world leaders use it because they found ways to make money at it. This is a made up problem just like Global Cooling in the 1970's. Wake up people. I agree we need to be more efficient with our resources, and we should fine and jail companies who are dumping into our rivers maliciously. I want to stop the raiforest destruction, but to say that global warming is a serious man made issue and we need to destroy the American economy and bow down to the rest of the world certainly does not float my boat. Follow the money on this one and you will see that it is all for political gain and grant money for those scientists who profit off of the government if global warming stays at the front of the issues. Look deep into the Keoto (sp?) Treaty, first of all they took jets to a non-central resort location. Not very environmentally concious. THen in the parameters of the treaty they have a clause that makes it so you can buy or sell polution credits. This is all about shifting wealth and breaking down the United States. This is painfully obvious, just look at peoples agenda. The earth's mean temperature has risen .6 degrees C in the past 125 years. Greenland's icecaps have gotten colder in the past 10 years. The Scientists who do not gain anything on their posisition will tell you that the earth has a natural progression and this is what we are seeing. The UN report is made up of POLITICIANS not a good spread of scientists. THere are as many or more scientists who believe that man in NOT the reason and it is over hyped, but their voice is not heard in the LIberal Mainstream Media. This issue is 99% political, and an attempt to make the USA a socialist nation, and eventually communisim. WAKE UP AMERICA, IT IS TIME TO BE AMERICANS. FOR THE PEOPLE BY THE PEOPLE. STOP THE LIES

Answer 6

The sun (or, in the case of Mars, giant dust storms) may be responsible for the other planets, but it's not the main cause of global warming on Earth.

Actual data shows it's not the suns radiation that's the major cause of global warming on Earth, it's us.

http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-...

Solar radiation is carefully measured.  Climatologists include it in their analysis.

The results are in the report below.  Increased solar radiation is 0.12 watts per meter squared.  Man's warming is 1.6 watts per meter squared, more than ten times as much.

http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

What scientists think.  Not from the "liberal" media.

""While evidence suggests fluctuations in solar activity can affect climate on Earth, and that it has done so in the past, the majority of climate scientists and astrophysicists agree that the sun is not to blame for the current and historically sudden uptick in global temperatures on Earth, which seems to be mostly a mess created by our own species."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,2583...

"I wasn’t convinced by a person or any interest group—it was the data that got me. I was utterly convinced of this connection between the burning of fossil fuels and climate change. And I was convinced that if we didn’t do something about this, we would be in deep trouble.”

Vice Admiral Richard H. Truly, USN (Ret.)

Former NASA Administrator, Shuttle Astronaut and the first Commander of the Naval Space Command

The best summaries of the data that convinced the Admiral, short and long.  Note that the sun is responsible for about 10% of the warming.

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Ima...

http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

Answer 7

It's a little too early yet to say for certain what's causing the warming on Mars or if indeed, it actually is warming.  We have very little data from Mars - not enough to draw definite conclusions.

In recent years some parts have experienced melting, particularly around the southern ice cap but conversely some areas have been freezing (the northern ice cap).  This is unlike on Earth where all parts have been warming.  Mars, like Earth, has seasons and on a yearly basis we can observe freezing and thawing.

The theory put forward by NASA and other scientists is that warming on Mars could be the result of global dust storms.  We know these occur and are violent winds engulfing the whole planet and whipping up huge amounts of dust.  This would affect temperatures, if Earth experienced similar storms we'd also see temperature changes here.

What we do know is that it's not the result of changes in the amount of heat from the sun (solar variation).  This is something that we can and do measure with extreme accuracy and since the 1970's there has been a slight decline in solar heat output.  Further, if Martian warming were the result of an increase in energy from the sun then all planets and moons in the solar system should be warming.  This isn't what we're seeing and in fact, of the 172 planets and moons only 5 show signs of warming.  Whatever the causes are they're unique to each planet and moon.

I'd love to be able to give you an answer but at this point in time there isn't one.  Perhaps ask the question in another 10 years time when we know more about Mars.

Answer 8

Simultaneous warming on Earth and Mars suggests that our planet’s recent climate changes have a natural—and not a human-induced—cause, according to one scientist’s controversial theory.

Earth is currently experiencing rapid warming, which the vast majority of climate scientists says is due to humans pumping huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Mars, too, appears to be enjoying more mild and balmy temperatures.o

In 2005 data from NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions revealed that the carbon dioxide “ice caps” near Mars’s south pole had been diminishing for three summers in a row.

Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of the St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun.

“The long-term increase in solar irradiance is heating both Earth and Mars,” he said.