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Mars Orbiter Sees Changes
pin_gween writes "The long-lived Mars Global Surveyor (8 yrs and flying) has enabled scientists to see changes in the surface of Mars. From the article: 'New gullies that did not exist in mid-2002 have appeared on a Martian sand dune. New impact craters formed since the 1970s suggest changes to age-estimating models. And for three Mars summers in a row, deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near Mars' south pole have shrunk from the previous year's size, suggesting a climate change in progress.' The probe's primary mission ended in 2001 and scientists are hopeful the orbiter's life can be extended for another 5 -10 years."
Our little orbiter is finally becomeing a man.
...the orbiter shows that the climate on Mars is heating up at the same rate as Earth's?
Not saying we don't have issues we need to address as well... but isn't that an interesting co-incidence?
Agile Artisans
A new face on Mars ?
Who cares id the ice cap is melting there... any buildings or roads they have built in 5 years?
http://www.automatiq.se
The Mars face has started to smile.
--- Eat my sig.
Well if Mars is going through what appears to be similar changes as the Earth then perhaps we need to go back and look at what we share in common, namely the sun.
Now of course with Mars we have even less history of their climate than our own but we could extrpolate from earlier photos just how much the visibile frozen material changed on the poles.
One could hope that since climate study on Mars should not be easily politicalized, at least early on, it may give us new isights into our own.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
We are not the only ones with 'global warming.'
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
It sounds far-fetched, but it is. I mean, people who exist have indeed said that we should leave other planets alone and confine our "alleged" destruction to our own. In fact, someone may have even predicted this, on slashdot even. Here's a link. Damn you Hemos - you failed to provide us with the necessary urgencies in order to furnish some real response.
Okay, we're using impact craters for age definition. On a surface as windy and subject to sand storms as Mars' is, isn't that a bit subjective? Can they really extrapolate the age of a surface based on erosion?
In the next paragraph they state,
However, the extent and duration of dust storms varied from year to year.
Seems to me they may need to reevaluate age determination some more.
Does this support the stance that some "scientists" have that global warming may be caused by natural patterns in the sun's energy output?
Beagle II has been digging to bury alien bones!
See, there is the PROOF!
Americans land two mini-SUVs on Mars, tool around the countryside making tracks, and triggers global warming!
Q.E.D.
While it may be tempting to draw parallels to what is happening to the climate on earth, keep in mind that:
* Correlation does not equal causation.
* Data from Mars is only available for three years, while data from Earth is available for thousands of years.
* Climate dynamics on Mars might be completely different from Earth.
And for three Mars summers in a row, deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near Mars' south pole have shrunk from the previous year's size, suggesting a climate change in progress. This is, of course, a result of human activity.
It does show that climate can change rapidly on a global scale without the help of man.
You don't think that the huge flaming ball at the center of our little system has "that" much influence over our temperatures? Just where do you think we are getting our heat from? On a more serious note, has anyone done a calculation for the ratio of sun temperature changes to the expected rise or fall of temperatures here on earth? In other words, if the old Sol's temperature goes up by 500 C, what will that do to the earth's temp? On a similar vein, what would happen if the sun didn't change its actual temperature, but rather it expanded thus putting the photosphere closer to the earth. What would be the effect for every X miles increase in photosphere size?
It's a million to one chance but why risk it?
Will it be soon crowded by black artefacts whose proportions are 1x4x9, which will eventually create a SUN out of it? ;)
;p
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086837/
All these gasguzzling SUVs are affecting the martian climate too?
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
That may be true, but my questions are still valid. Everyone is assuming that man is the cause of what may be the warming of the earth (ignoring facts like a single volcanic eruption spews out 500 times as much as greenhouse gases as man has every produced). But with potential evidence on a planet where we are not affecting the climate, that perception may change to real issues. Like, maybe the earth is not a very stable place for long-term habitation by a single dominant species (witness the many mass extinctions over the eons). Thus we might be well advised to spend a lot more money and time on finding a way to get off this rock if we want the species to continue to survive.
it's those damn rovers...global warming is impacting mars, now, huh? i wonder why earth isn't just going through a 'climate change'?
ds
This is remarkable. Just when we thought that no changes of any kind (except due to sand storms) were happening on Mars' surface, we discover this.
We really need to send humans there to explore and search for that bacterial life that I personally believe once did evolve there, and might still exist.
Ignore Alien Orders
"Ehm, same change takes place on Mars"
"Oh, let's not then. Instead, let's spend the money instead on Malaria treatment and clean water or other things that actually makes sense"
Now, if this turns out to be true, who can honestly say that there's no cost-benefit to space research.
Mars entering in to the Kyoto treaty would probably be welcomed. Since they don't really have much industry up there, they could trade their emissions quoto with countries who still say "Fuck yeah, we need SUVs! how else will I drive my 5 year old kid to school".
-- Using the preview button since 2005
Will all those observations help us protect us from the rabid weather movements here opn this planet?
http://tarrysingh.blogspot.com/
Probably has nothing to do with the sun, if your bullshit argument is to be believed.
I never said there weren't other factors, but without the sun both of these planets would have temperatures near 3 K, and the sun is the primary reason they are so much hotter than this. Add to that, the fact that Venus could not have a gaseous atmosphere were it not for the sun.
So yes, the sun most certainly is the primary factor.
I have yet to find a scientist (I mean a real one with a science degree, not a PR person or a journalist) who would disagree that adding CO2 to the atmosphere is increasing the greenhouse effect. If the sun is getting hotter, that does not give us a license to ignore the problem.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
During the 50s in the UK the rise in refrigerator ownership correlated perfectly with the rise in the crime rate. If correlation equals causation then this close correlation implies that purchasing a refrigerator makes you a criminal (or is it the other way round).
If you're using correlation to demonstrate causation you need to demonstrate the linkage as well. Correlation is never enough.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
Mars entering in to the Kyoto treaty would probably be welcomed. Since they don't really have much industry up there, they could trade their emissions quoto with countries who still say "Fuck yeah, we need SUVs! how else will I drive my 5 year old kid to school".
Are you _still_ mad about that? Give it up. It's long since over.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
DO NOT believe the evidence! Just because warming trends are happening on two different planets is NO reason to think that there might be a common cause, like the solar energy cycle. DO NOT read up NASA predictions for solar cooling and cooler weather on Earth. DO NOT look at the graph showing the correlation between solar output and the Earth's climate. DO NIT read up on the data showing that most stars like the sun show variability in output. DO NOT read about how the Earth's climate has changed greatly in the past, but always oscillates in a limited range.
Read only government approved scare stories. Believe only government approved computer climate models (even if they do not yet generate outputs that conform to the real data we see). Accept as an article of faith that the "cause" of the "problem" is fossil fuels (even though the majority of warming in the last 200 years occurred before the Industrial Revolution really got underway). Accept only "solutions" to the "problem" like Kyoto (even though Kyoto does not bind the fastest growing nations to any curbs in carbon use, and even though Kyoto would drastically depress standards of living growth in the first world).
When anyone challenges the government story on global warming, accuse them of being in the pay of "Big Oil". DO NOT judge the data and theories on their own merits; preemptorilly disbelieve anything that does not conform to what you've read in Time magazine and heard in Al Gore's political speeches, even if it comes from Mars probes, or experts on solar energy.
Well if Mars is going through what appears to be similar changes as the Earth then perhaps we need to go back and look at what we share in common, namely the sun.
Congratulations! That's an excellent use of rhetoric. In a single stroke, you make climatologists look like idiots ("The sun! Oh my god, we forgot about the sun!") and you push your political agenda.
Do you really expect readers to be naive enough to believe that Martian or terrestrial climatologists have not incorporated solar output into their models? Of course they have, for as far back as those measurements exist. Solar output is taken into account both for climate models on Mars and on earth, and it fails to account for global warming on earth. Climate change on Mars is expected and has been predicted.
Didn't a big new color band of weather suddenly appear on Jupiter last year? It seems to me that "fast" changes in weather are happening all over our Solar System.
Who knows, but I have a feeling that certain cycles are coming together to really shake things up in this solar system of ours.
Mind | Body | Spirit | Cash
Does this mean there are pirates on Mars?
Isn't the human ability to jump rightly or wrongly to obvious conclusions amazing? I mean, you can't PROGRAM illogic like that, but from an Evo Devo viewpoint, post hoc ergo propter hoc has obvious survival advantages and it would sure be useful if you could!
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
How our beautiful mind works... We see changes because we start looking. The changes do not start to happen when we are looking. And because both A and B happen at the same time we think A and B are connected.
Yes, I am the one with the legendary sig.
If i hadn't spent all my mod points I would have moded this funny.
...the landing was shot in a government sound studio located in NASA's secret moon base.
I mean come on people, how is that not funny?
"For Great Justice."
And for three Mars summers in a row, deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near Mars' south pole have shrunk from the previous year's size, suggesting a climate change in progress
Isn't this somewhat similar to what's happening at the North Pole here? More ice is melting than is refreezing, something they say is caused by global warming - but if something similar is happening on all the planets...?
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Obviously we humans are drastically impacting the fate of mars through um... the rovers, yeah! and heating up its climate!
Oh, what's that you say? Both Earth and Mars have this fucking huge ball of plasmic gas burning not too far away from us, thousands of times the size of our planets? And its going through a cyclical "hot" season?
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
mmmmmmmmmmmm...Strawberry Nestles Quick....
From TFA:After looking at the images, I'd say that the gullies became more prominent, but not that they didn't exist. I can clearly see evidence for the source of the more 'northerly' gully as well as a channel leading to an eroded area in the valley for the more 'southerly' gully.
I agree that the findings are very interesting and important, but to state that the gullies "simply did not exist" is overstating the facts, IMHO.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
interesting... could the reason of the climate change on Mars linked to the one on Earth?
WTF? Are there people who don't exist?
DO try to write LIKE this because it will absolutely add more VALIDITY to your ARGUMENT and also it is NOT annoying at all and IT will make you look LIKE a smart funny MAN on the INTERNET.
In other news...
Sun Energy Output At Over 1,000 Year Peak
http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/002242.html
Hmm...
If they are noting a decrease in the polar caps I wonder how is this affecting mars atmosphere. Scientists believe they could terraform mars by increasing it's temperature and melting some ice.
They are trenches being dug by the Martian defense forces as part of preparations to repel the imminent invasion by the Terrans.
Because the whole global warming thing is so politicized I like to take the view that humans are using more resources than are being produced, so in X years time the resources will run out or become scarce.
I try to encourage people to live in a sustainable fashion regardless of their view on global warming.
(There are ofcorse the people that believe that the Oil will keep flowing at a reasonable rate forever, but I don't think theres anything that can help them).
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
They think that sunspot activity affects the temperature of the Earth more than greenhouse gases. Should work the same way on Mars. The Guardian had a little article on it.
Or those celebrities who travel the globe for their tv show called "Trippin'" and claim to be environmentally friendly but really they just bought emissions points from other organizations.
Blessed be he who reads this post, Cursed be he who tells my boss.
Good information. And, since I am not a solar scientist I cannot suggest why the sun may have fluctuations in heating/cooling other than the assumption that the sun is not a constant heat source without any variation in temperature. Same for size.
I only brought up the sun as a possible variable for changes in the earth's temperature because of the article at the root of this forum says that there appears to be a climatic warming trend in progress of significant enough rate for us to notice it clearly in only a three period and that the sun is a common possible factor in the climates for both worlds. However, I am sure that someone will be able to give me a good guess as to other causes for the sudden heating on Mars in this story forum.
Volcanoes, shmalcanoes. What about the cow flatulence?
Disconnect your brain and blame Bush for this as well. Information? Facts? And understanding of processes? We need none of these. Instead we should stifle businesses without knowing what's going on. Why? Because we will FEEL better about ourselves for doing our part. Who cares if our efforts actually do anything, we'll have a clearer conscious.
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
Also, on Earth, piracy is actually a worsening problem in areas like the Malacca straits. Our climate is getting warmer, though. So it's not an inverse correlation at all, is it? Huh?? Seems like pirates might be contributing to the problem.
Personally I think we have a much bigger set of information -- across multiple planets and decades of data -- showing that unmanned interplanetary probes inhibit White Shark attacks. When was the last time we had a shark attack problem with one of our probes? Never. Not one. Also there haven't been any problems with elephant stampedes. And have there been any race riots on Mars, or Saturn, or anywhere else we've sent a wee robot? Nope.
If only we'd kept these probes at home, they could be used to address pressing social problems like those. Instead the government throws money at these military industrial complex boondoggles. Sheesh.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
I'd be more suprised if this kind natural corrosion wouldn't happen in Mars. And a new impact crater? Oh, really...?
There is more than 3 years worth of data.
Studies of earth based photos/images and drawings over decades have also suggested the South Polar Cap has been shrinking for a couple of decades. Nice to see the MO data supports this.
Not only that, if we send humans to mars, we could examine CO2-ice cores at the poles and get thousands/millions of years of data there as well. THAT would be interesting to see--does it correlate strongly to earth's climate changes (implying solar/other celestial factors), or not? Maybe that is where the first human mission to mars should go.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Damned typos. That should read the sun is roughly 1.4x10^6km in diameter.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Despite the rant, you did post some interesting links.
One is based on 1991 science and contains this line:
"Last modified by DKS on 10 October 1997."
The other articles are similarly old.
So, did the predictions from NASA about sunspots and cooling come true?
For those who didn't read it, the NASA predictions cited were from a 1997 presentation that predicted less solar activity and cooler temperatures in the next decade.
IIRC, the value of a hypothesis lies largely in its predictive power. Since the decade from 1997-2007 is almost over, perhaps we can check his predictions.
Since I haven't read that the planet is cooling off anywhere, I conclude that either
1) I missed something really big, and so did the Republicans, or
2) He's right about the sun cooling, but we're doing such an effective warming job that we mask the effect, or
3) He's wrong.
Since you're obviously well informed about these things, which is it?
Best wishes,
-greg
I guess Quaid finally started the reactor.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
"8 yrs and flying"..."life can be extended for another 5 -10 years."
To all the morons who blanket NASA engineers as being worthless...
Yet another success. Shut up.
That damn president of ours. Idiot! He's such a moron that his policies are even changing the climate of MARS. Buffoon! If he would just go ahead and sign Kyoto all this would be over. :)
RP
You need to look into things, The US has crashed a ton of stuff into mars over the years, it's just failed missions don't make for good CNN where as failed missions by others DO.
Ok, I surrender! It's not fault of human activities, like burning fossil fuels in huge amounts. The warming is caused by a natural cycle in our sun's life. It even happens on Mars.
First of all, let me say that I'm glad to hear even some right wing capitalism-can't-be-wrong fans admit that the warming EXIST at all! It was not ever so. I still keep hearing about an impending ice age, in the face of all evidence. Let's forget this embarassing crap, and agree that Earth IS getting warmer. A good starting point.
Now what? Do we sit here waiting to be flooded, devastated by hurricanes, frozen (even this may happen, on a local scale) or starved by drought, all happy that "it's not our fault"? Or do we try to counterbalance the effect of increased solar output (which we cannot influence at all) with our influence on what we can control? Do we know a mechanism influencing atmospheric temperature on a global scale? Yes, it's well understood (from physics and from what we see on other planets like Venus and Mars) that a high amount of greenhouse gases (water vapor, methane, CO2 and others) raises the temperature, while low levels make the atmosphere cooler. The water cycle is probably too powerful to be controlled in any significant amount. Methane is already scarce. CO2 is relatively abundant, and increasing. Declare war on CO2 to lower its level and counterbalance the evil Sun effect! If reducing it turns out too difficult, at least try not to increase it too much, as it provenly contributes to raise temperatures.
Nuffsaid
________
Don't know about his cat, but Schroedinger is definitely dead.
The Martian economy took a serious blow today when the industrial sector was given a series of mandates to cut their emissions to a 'green' level. The infamous pseudoscientific Martian pinko brigade has introduced crumbling evidence that the recent shrinkage inthe polar caps was a direct result of sapient impact on the global climate. A previously unknown fringe group is trying to cast blame at the planet Earth, claming that emissions from that planet are the true cause.... Film at eleven.
Oh, sure, just drive around on the dunes for a while with a couple off-road buggies, and the rabid environmentalists start ringing the "global warming" alarms. How predictable.
[
And it's not just global warming. It's also the increased erosion, caused by greedy capitalist exploitation, supported by the Republican's business-first policies.
I tell ya, they just don't care about protecting the environment...
It's the stuff with the word Nucular that REALLY messes up the environment!
The articles you point to are just good science. You have to look at everything. It does not mean there is nothing we can do. How does NASA predicting global cooling by reduced Sun output help your theory? It would mean that we should be cooling, but we have so carbonized the air that we are instead heating up. So if this "theory" (of many) is true, we were lucky not to be even hotter. I think when they see Eskimos in beach wear and beach front property moving two miles inland, people will say; "oh look, global warming". And the Kool Aide drinking BushBots will have been saying it was going to happen all along -- after they lie about it for a few months and everybody starts believing thats how they remember it too. Tell me you didn't vote for Bush ... the thought patterns are too unmistakable. Tell me you didn't insult everyone who said "global warming" two years ago. I am assuming things here, and I apologize if I'm wrong, but I've seen this too much. There are too many on this website of the Bush persuasion who have been constantly wrong, yet still think they have the credibility to still give advice.
DO NOT listen to the scientists who have been saying; "climate change" -- even though they were right.
DO NOT stop polluting and wasting fossil fuels, because the reason is the sun.
DO NOT stop listening to the government voices of calm and reason.
DO NOT pay attention to the billions of $ in profits that go to companies that profit from the status quo.
Now that the cat is out of the bag, you find some way to keep Big Oil out of the picture. Maybe it wasn't fossil fuel burning that changed the weather -- or maybe it was. But I do remember that they had been paying the same people to say "no global warming" as they are now paying people to say "if there is global warming, it's natural". See? Why should we believe these sources of propaganda that have lied to us repeatedly?
Maybe there are things we can do--but when we make those decisions, let's listen to the people who have been making good choices and who have been honest in the past. If the sun is warming the planet, and we don't want to live with constant class 4 hurricanes and droughts and the shutdown of the gulf stream turning Europe into a frozen tundra -- maybe we can do some terra-forming or act to reduce the impact of humans. At least it might reduce the epidemic numbers of children getting asthma these days -- of course, that isn't due to pollution -- it's due to the sun. Whatever. Your recommendation is to listen to companies that have a vested interest in the status quo.
I don't think Kyoto would have necessarily solved the problem -- but it would have improved the situation. The standard of living in the US is going to be reduced. It can either happen with energy efficient cars that don't have 3 tons and 200 horse power and changes in behavior, or it will happen as an emergency rationing. I only know that the bastards who have always lied to us, will not be feeling the pain. They will be living in mile-long cruise ships and traveling where there is temperate weather and a good party.
Al Gore has been saying honest things for years. He seems to have a better grasp of the science than you. If you are determined to be an cannon fodder, please, get out of my country.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
http://volcano.und.edu/vwdocs/Gases/man.html
b s/351387a0.html;jsessionid=47E7825B96884284A97B6E5 C50343A70
Kilauea kicks out only 8,000 tons a day.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v351/n6325/a
Etna kicks out 13+-3Tg/yr, or roughly 1,171,000 US tons of CO2 per year...
Seems like a lot, but, US CO2 production is something a billion tons of CO2 per year. So, the volcanos give out 1/1000 of CO2 as the USA does.
Rock on!
This is my sig.
Who tossed aside the idea that it could be the sun? Is that what Limbaugh is saying now? Do you have an actual quote from some REAL liberal? If you give Lieberman a cookie, he'll say anything you want, but a real, credible Liberal saying that the sun couldn't possibly contribute to Global Warming?
It seems to me, the same crowd that is looking for "inevitable global warming" is the same crowd who laughed at anyone who said global warming.
Don't put words in my mouth or try to change history. The Liberals have been saying that carbon emissions are adding to global warming. Nobody has tried to push the "absolute fact". This has been mostly science driven and its just traditional for the Educated Elitist Liberals to listen to scientists.
The Martian data is inconclusive but very interesting. We still need to drastically reduce our consumption levels and to find ways that the developing world does not have to follow in our footsteps. China is buying up oil and steel companies... what is going to happen, no matter what the Oil Company theory du jour is, when a Billion + people try to have the American life style? When you look at the earth from space, you can see the deforestation, the lights of cities, and the huge impact people have had. There is even a brownish tint to the air that didn't used to be there.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
It does show that climate can change rapidly on a global scale without the help of man . . . on mars.
I would have to disagree with this...we have solar panels in space, where there is no atmosphere to interfere. We can measure EXACTLY how much energy is incident on these solar panels. It's quite well-known how the panels decay over time, and we have hundreds of them up there. The textbook says that we have 1,367 W/m^2 at 1 AU...if the power output of the Sun were changing, it wshould be easy to measure...
going to blame this one on global warming??????
CO2 could be being chemically bound by other actions to soil materials. It could be preferentially out-gassed from the atmosphere.
I'm not saying that these are the cases that are happening, but without a second information source, it would be speculative to say that global warming is the only cause.
That and three years doesn't indicate a long term trend ... now, if we had been on Mars for the past century or so, that would be a different case - we would have air temperature readings going back a ways, and I would waiting a long time for my "preview" button to work ;-)
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
Mars was closest to the Sun (perihelion) in its orbit on August 30, 2003.
- earth-orbit.jpg
The nitwits will claim it's so bright in the evening sky because the sun is hotter, or something like that. Bogus. Bo-o-o-o-gus
Mars has a much more elliptical orbit than Earth.
When the "sun's getting hotter" nitwits start ranting that it must be so because look how RED and BRIGHT Mars is, late September and October 2005 -- chuckle.
Here's a picture of the orbits, with years marked:
http://www.kidscosmos.org/kid-stuff/graphics/mars
As with Earth, It's obiously a case of global warming resulting from man's activities on mars, After all, we have sent fossil-fuel-powered landers there (Vikings I and II, and others as well if I recall) and while the latest probes have relied on parachutes and airbags for emission-free landings, clearly having those probes wander around stirring up dust and otherwise disturbing the environment, which is not being returned to its natural state, is to blame. Let's all blame this on George Dubya Bush! Let's all jump on the "Dubya is evil" bandwagon. ;)
Global warming is a crock and I'm just using this opportunity to mock environazis because they're not about saving the environment, but just have the "Not In My BackYard" syndrome. Check out Senator Kennedy's opposition of the proposed wind farm off the coast of Nantucket. Look at the wack jobs here in New England opposing the drilling for LNG off the coast of New England. Idiots. I hate environmentalists.
Carry on!
You're assuming that the solar panels are powered by the same frequencies that have the most effect on gobal climate. Looking at the NASA article, it seems that the focus is on what the sun does to earth's magnetic fields, which wouldn't mean much for solar panels.
Good points. Also it is irrelavent as to whether we cause global warming. The point is that we have to keep the climate at the optimum temperature to sustain human civilisation.
If that means that we have to curb our emissions of things like methane and CO2 and then take more radical measures (like actively injecting chemicals into our atmosphere to cool it) then so we must.
If it is the sun's fault, then our task is just a little harder than if it was ours.
After all, to those who say that global warming is a natural event, I say so was the comet that eliminated the dinosaurs. You wouldn't feel bad about spending billions of dollars to shoot down a killer comet would you? Now how about spending the same amount of money to save us from stupid killer weather?
Come come now. We know from the computer models that CO2 emissions must surely cause global warming. Computer models are unquestionable oracles. Just look at the predicted tracks of Katrina and Rita.
Unfortunately, the Catos are not around to tell us what they think of having their name appropriated by the Cato Institute. But then nor is Jesus around to give us his views on current Christianity.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
NASA wrote:
> for three Mars summers in a row, deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near
> Mars' south pole have shrunk from the previous year's size, suggesting
> a climate change in progress.
Guess we need to raise energy taxes on Mars too. Would be kind of funny if all the other planets were experiencing global warming but no-one said anything about it because of the political inertia behind energy taxes.
(A) We figured out Katrina fairly well
(B) The problem of figuring specific fluctionations in a chaothic system is different from predicting the attractors over time. Trivially: We can't predict if it will rain in two weeks - but we *can* predict that it will be hotter next July than it is right now (at least where I'm located.)
Eivind.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
How about adding the purchase of a mandatory insurance policy to all use of fossil fuel: You pay the market rate for an insurance policy to clean up the effects of that pollution, when/if necessary.
If your evidence is so compelling, there will be investors lining up on that side of the fence, and the price of that policy will be close to zip.
If the actual cost, as far as we can estimate, is high, that policy will be expensive.
If your data is better than the overall data, you can make a gazillion by investing on the right side, being in front of the price.
Put your money where your mouth is. And let's pay for our cleanup.
Eivind.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
Without a tax machine like global warming, how are you going to raise energy taxes? If you can't raise energy taxes you'll give politicians less power. If you politicians have less power, they'll be unhappy. You don't want that to happen, do you?
> deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near Mars' south pole have shrunk from the previous year's size, suggesting a climate change in progress
DAMNIT! I knew we were killing Mars' environment too! After all, if both planets are experiencing similar 'ice' recessions in their poles, the cause MUST be the same. And since it is a capital offense to suggest humans aren't causing on Earth, we must be causing it on Mars!
"Earth first! We can strip mine the other planets later."
Karma is for the weak.
So now global warming is even affecting Mars!!
Looking at the pictures or the animation of the eroding polar pits, I found it almost impossible not to see them as expanding mounds. I had to rotate the gif image 180 degrees to make my view match the comments.
a,e,i,o,u and sometimes w and y (at be if of up cwm by)
The link to the Quicktime movie showing how dusty the planet is is wrong. In fact, the movie is mpeg and you have to click on the "+ Full caption/ high resolution image" link to get to it.
a,e,i,o,u and sometimes w and y (at be if of up cwm by)
That hasn't happened and there's a piss-pot full of data that shows the earth has been hotter in the past than it is now.
Even so... Would it benefit mankind to figure out someway to reduce the average temperature of the planet? I'm not really saying CO2 emmission reduction, but something more on the lines of direct cooling through technological means. Perhaps reflecting more energy back into space or concentrating heat on earth and turn it into more mechnical means... Heck if I know how you would pull it off, but regardless if man is causing it or not, Earth is getting warmer and may cause some major problems.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I guess big business (and others) would prefer if global warming was all the fault of the sun. It might even be possible to prove that by correlating climate change on Earth with that on Mars. But we'd have to get better data about Mars climate change... maybe send some robotic probes to take cores at the poles. It would be expensive but it could perceived to be worth it for any number of megacorporations, especially the oil and coal industries. How about it?
Prolog rules
I have a Philadelphia Inquirer article from April 14, 2003 that say they weren't taking the Sun into account.
But if this article and our assumptions are wrong, please show us the scientific literature that does control for variable output from the Sun.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
I see humor is still completely lost on the slashbot crowd...
Try reading my post again with the irony mod pack installed, friend. Holy Cheeze-its.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
..........Now they're causing global warming on Mars.
--"Sorry for the inconvience." Gods Last Words to his Creation
DNA, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
C'mon people. If you don't agree with an opinion, write a rebuttal.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body