Climate change on Mars?

[Osbourne One-Nil]

Never quite understood the Maunder Minimum because it occured at a time when telescopes were pretty lousy with very poor resolution, which is exactly what you need when identifying sunspots.

[Bobby]

I stopped reading that link when it mentioned "global warming brigade".

I believe the theory is that some parts of the poles have been warming in recent years. Now, this observed warming is in one particular area over a period of just a few years. To extrapolate this into there is global warming on Mars is silly.

[noggin]

the usual load of old gristle.

Oh, cheers for that Devonian :lol: .....made me laugh out loud for the first time in days. Priceless. :lol:

And Noggin, no, you're not daft.

Cheers Jethro!

(......load of old gristle

Sorry to go on, but I really needed a good laugh at the moment!)

[Devonian]

Hasn't the Sun been more active recently than it has been in the last 1000 years?

Yes, but not over the times scale of the 'global warming on Mars' line.

[Devonian]

The sun isn't being selective, very dismissive Devonian and I am surprised. Do you think planets rotate aound the sun eqi-distance all the time? Do you think the sun remains constant all the time? Do you think planets remain as constants and have no axis changes. We know there are solar minimas [Wolf, Dalton, Maunder etc], we know there are Milankovitch cycles, magnetic reversals etc etc. Its all out there!

BFTP

The Sun's output varies - over long time scales. So that's why iner planets Venus and Mercury aren't warming and Mars is*. What is the mechanism for this, supposed, selective warming? Please don't arm wave about long time scale axis changes, and solar minimas - what is the mechanism for the current warmings being claimed for some but not all orbiting bodies?

The Sun is (as far as I know) our only Sun. If it's the reason for our recent warming then it affects all the other orbiting bodies - at least over the time scales we're considering. Trouble is, only a few bodies seem to be undergoing localised climate changes - local climate effect on orbiting bodies, energy redistributions NOT other global warmings. And I'm STILL waiting for someone to point me to something in the supplied links where it's claimed it's the Sun that's causing these localised changes.

No, there is some evidence for some local climate changes on other planets/moons of the solar system. Nowt to do with the Sun.

* trouble is Mars isn't globally warming either (RealClimate link above), and as OON said, the data elsewhere is sparse and localised...

[Essan]

Guess what. It's possible for Mars to be warming due to the sun and for climates on earth to be changing due to human activities.

And given that we know absolutely that humans are causing climate change on earth and that we're not causing climate change on Mars, there really seems little to discuss?

After all. If someone dies of cancer and someone else is found dead in a car crash, does one argue that he also died of cancer?

[Weather-history]

Never quite understood the Maunder Minimum because it occured at a time when telescopes were pretty lousy with very poor resolution, which is exactly what you need when identifying sunspots.

Other effects was very few auroral displays were seen during that period and also I think solar corona seen during total eclipses was weak.

[eddie]

Never quite understood the Maunder Minimum because it occured at a time when telescopes were pretty lousy with very poor resolution, which is exactly what you need when identifying sunspots.

Powerful telescopes aren't really required to count sunspots. In fact looking at the sun through a telescope is something you really really don't want to do.

You just need a simple lense that can project the image of the sun on to a piece of paper. It's quite easy to count the spots.

[Osbourne One-Nil]

Not the small ones it's not, and I speak from 25 years experience in astronomy.

I was just pointing out that there are SO many variables, that no one can use one piece of information to prove anything.

[Iceberg]

People are really getting desperate if this thread is anything to go by.

Same old same old.

[jethro]

I totally disagree - you simply can't rule our activities out as a climate effect, perhaps a major one, especially when the have such obvious effects planet wide.

That's one way of saying there is no mention of the Sun

I never have said it's all natural, I've always accepted our impact; I just don't accept it's all manmade either. Yes, I expect the Sun does have a part to play along with many other natural phenomena, little bits all adding up together - us included.

Hold on Jethro...I've heard time and time again how we can't really know how much we're warming on Earth because our records only go back so far. Yet we're expected to take seriously data of a few years for lumps of rock tens or hundreds of millions...even billions of miles away? Rocks which are resolved at extremely low resolution using brand new technology, with absolutely nothing as a base line?

Ok.

Every journey has a beginning Oon. If NASA believe their data is valid then who are we to disagree? It may prove to be an important part of the jigsaw. When this thread began, someone raised a valid point of how come warming is limited to Mars if it something going on in our Solar system? I did a quick Google and came up with info on other planets; perhaps something we do not understand or have knowledge of is going on, without research, we'll never know. I'm not saying it proves anything one way or another, merely that I find it interesting.

[jethro]

Jethro - We don't 'overide' all the other factors. Our effect enhances the rest.

Take for example the chart that matches solar output against temperature. In many cases it matches very closely (dare I say responsible for perhaps 95% of temperature change as a figure pulled from the air). However as we know the temp record for the last few years does not follow the solar input any longer and the error has increased.

When you add the input from AGW the accuracy increases. Which shows that we do not expect AGW to account for all of the effect, just the the little bit departs from natural cycles. The question that remains is how much further will climate changes depart from natural cycles? A little? A lot? What other natural cycles will shift and create feedbacks that minimise of enhance the effects?

Do not discount our effect because it is small. It is important if we are to accurately model future climate.

I do not discount it and I understand how it impacts upon natural cycles. My questioning arises from the standpoint of how great is our understanding of the natural cycles? Do we know all we need to know in order to accurately access the situation? I don't believe we do. The whole world is being asked to alter it's behaviour based upon the IPCC report, yet time and again their predictions prove to be inaccurate. We know how much Co2 we're chucking out into the atmosphere, the computers and models have calculated the impact this will have based upon the known natural cycles/drivers. If the imput of Co2 levels into the models is a known and can be calculated and yet the predicted outcomes are inaccurate then surely, it stands to reason the input of the known naturals must be wrong. Only a few weeks ago there were reports of how Methane hasn't risen as predicted but has in fact levelled off, large "Burps" of Co2 have been discovered rising from the ocean bottom which has been proven to have been stored there for thousands of years. These are just two examples which spring to mind, of natural phenomena we are discovering new things about. Possibly, perhaps, however unlikely or however little we currently understand things, this information about changes on other planets within our Solar system may have something to do with our recent warming too. It shouldn't just be dismissed.

[Devonian]

I do not discount it and I understand how it impacts upon natural cycles. My questioning arises from the standpoint of how great is our understanding of the natural cycles? Do we know all we need to know in order to accurately access the situation? I don't believe we do. The whole world is being asked to alter it's behaviour based upon the IPCC report, yet time and again their predictions prove to be inaccurate. We know how much Co2 we're chucking out into the atmosphere, the computers and models have calculated the impact this will have based upon the known natural cycles/drivers. If the imput of Co2 levels into the models is a known and can be calculated and yet the predicted outcomes are inaccurate then surely, it stands to reason the input of the known naturals must be wrong. Only a few weeks ago there were reports of how Methane hasn't risen as predicted but has in fact levelled off, large "Burps" of Co2 have been discovered rising from the ocean bottom which has been proven to have been stored there for thousands of years. These are just two examples which spring to mind, of natural phenomena we are discovering new things about. Possibly, perhaps, however unlikely or however little we currently understand things, this information about changes on other planets within our Solar system may have something to do with our recent warming too. It shouldn't just be dismissed.

Wrong assumption about the predictions I think - they're doing well so far.

If there are unknown effects they might be feedback warmings and we should proceed with more caution than we do?

Certainly it would be unwise to assume unknowns are going to come to our aid?

Edited June 6, 2007 by Devonian

[jethro]

Wrong assumption about the predictions I think - they're doing well so far.

If there are unknown effects they might be feedback warmings and we should proceed with more caution than we do?

Certainly it would be unwise to assume unknowns are going to come to our aid?

From what I've recently read about IPCC predictions, I'd disagree with you. Yes, they might be feedbacks but they're as likely to not be; Ocean "burps" were an unknown. I assume nothing, hence exploring things like this thread. I don't think it wise to presume we know all we need to know in order to be able to cope with further warming or indeed cooling, should either happen.

[Osbourne One-Nil]

Keeps coming back to the fact that the actions being recommended by many are pretty inconsequential if proven unnecessary.

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

The Sun's output varies - over long time scales. So that's why iner planets Venus and Mercury aren't warming and Mars is*. What is the mechanism for this, supposed, selective warming? Please don't arm wave about long time scale axis changes, and solar minimas - what is the mechanism for the current warmings being claimed for some but not all orbiting bodies?

The Sun is (as far as I know) our only Sun. If it's the reason for our recent warming then it affects all the other orbiting bodies - at least over the time scales we're considering. Trouble is, only a few bodies seem to be undergoing localised climate changes - local climate effect on orbiting bodies, energy redistributions NOT other global warmings. And I'm STILL waiting for someone to point me to something in the supplied links where it's claimed it's the Sun that's causing these localised changes.

No, there is some evidence for some local climate changes on other planets/moons of the solar system. Nowt to do with the Sun.

* trouble is Mars isn't globally warming either (RealClimate link above), and as OON said, the data elsewhere is sparse and localised...

Calm down Devonian you'll give yourself a hernia! Planets year in year out do not rotate around the sun on the same path in a perfect circle and so due to positioning, magnetic fields etc relative output will vary.

The findings are new so mechanisms are unknown I would say.

One may arm wave because you crash in making comments to suit your bill....surprised

BFTP

[Osbourne One-Nil]

Planets year in year out do not rotate around the sun on the same path in a perfect circle and so due to positioning, magnetic fields etc relative output will vary.

Not in perfect circles, no, but in all other respects, any variations in orbit are so miniscule as to render them irrelevent, if they even exist at all.

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

Not in perfect circles, no, but in all other respects, any variations in orbit are so miniscule as to render them irrelevent, if they even exist at all.

Hi OON

Opinion or fact?

BFTP

Edited June 6, 2007 by BLAST FROM THE PAST

[Osbourne One-Nil]

Fact, as far as my knowledge goes.

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

Fact, as far as my knowledge goes.

Ta for that OON.

BFTP

[jethro]

Keeps coming back to the fact that the actions being recommended by many are pretty inconsequential if proven unnecessary.

Precisely. And punative, to boot.

[Filski]

Punative? Not in my experience. Economies change their base all the time, why should now be any different? The advent of the car shook up the world, the airplane, TV, mobile phones, the internet. All changes in our behaviour that have proved beneficial to the economy and enriched our lives. Why should these proposed changes to reduce emissions be seen as anything other than a challenge - a positive one? I interviewed a supplier today whose efforts at increasing sustainability in their practices means they gain an edge over competitors while increasing the standards for many of the workers in places like India and China with fair pay rates amongst other things, whilst reducing emmisions and increasing recycling.

The way I see it is we have 2 choices. We can act now and potentially offset the worst of the effects several decades from now - for your grandchildrens future perhaps (facing the fact that anything we do now will not have a noticable effect for a couple of decades at least). We could establish new economies that are more flexible and capable of rising to the challenges posed by limited resources for surely our access to metals and fossil fuels will become increasingly restricted as demand grows.

Or we could wait for the level of certainty you desire and condemn your grandchildren to an uncertain future that may (or may not) exclude a standard of living to which you've become accustomed.

Your choice.

Back on topic

Martian temperatures depend in part on how much sunlight is absorbed or reflected. Dark features such as exposed bedrock and boulders catch rays and causing local temperatures to rise. On the other hand and bright surfaces such as varying layers of planetary dust bounce sunlight back into space and keeping things cool. Such uneven heating then stirs up strong winds in the thin and dry martian atmosphere and the winds then sweep the dust around and burying darker features in some places even as they uncover them in others. Spacecraft images show that more than one-third of its surface area has shown seasonal variations that brighten or darken by at least 10%. Now, Lori Fenton of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California and colleagues have linked such shifting patterns of reflectivity to a curious warming of the martian climate. The researchers mapped albedo changes on the martian surface over 20 years and comparing images from the late-1970s Viking mission to the Mars Global Surveyor mission from 1999. On average and Mars reflects 84% of the sunlight that strikes it and but the researchers have found that the martian albedo has generally decreased. The overall reduction in albedo, in part and corresponds to the planet's warming of 0.65°C over 20 years and the team reports this week in Nature. In addition and the changes could whip up intense weather and including global dust storms and spiral disturbances called dust devils and which act like little vacuum cleaners, reduce albedo and help increase temperature. The findings introduce one more factor in the complicated equations that govern martian climate and Fenton says: “Albedo has been regarded as a secondary concern and but we've shown you can't really ignore it if you want to understand [the climate] there.”

A Darker, Hotter Mars -- Simpson 2007 (404): 4 -- ScienceNOW

[jethro]

Or we could wait for the level of certainty you desire and condemn your grandchildren to an uncertain future that may (or may not) exclude a standard of living to which you've become accustomed.

Your choice.

Back on topic

Edited June 6, 2007 by jethro

[Filski]

I agree, keep an open mind. I welcome the climate sceptics because they find holes in the theories and help to refine the science. They do not as yet provide a single theory that can stand up to the same scrutiny as the 'accepted' research.

I eagerly wait for the day that one is presented

[Essan]

Keeps coming back to the fact that the actions being recommended by many are pretty inconsequential if proven unnecessary.

Yes. If you think saving money by turning the lights off is inconsequential. If you don't think rain forests or clouds have any effect on climate. If you think moving away from reliance on nice friendly countries like Russia and Iran for our energy supplies is unnecessary .....

Precisely. And punative, to boot.

Why do sop many people so strongly opposed to spending less money on electricity? Are you all shareholders in Russian Gas Companies or something?

I can understand that you don't care about the rainforests, enjoy seeing species become extinct, love news stories about people dying from flood, drought and famines (caused by them chopping down said rain forests). But I don't understand why you like spending so much money on your energy supplies and, indeed, your tax bills, when it's so simple to reduce them.

But maybe that's because unlike the rest of you I don't have inexhaustible supplies of money?