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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
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.
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.
Beagle II has been digging to bury alien bones!
Careful, lest ye be branded heretic by the Environmental Priesthood. Global Warming is obviously caused by SUVs (as opposed to accelerated by them). Remember, there's no PAC money if they find out that nature is simply taking its course.
nos laetus epulor qui would domito nos
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.
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?
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.
Last time I heard that it was "500 times as much carbon dioxide as one metropolis produces per year".
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.
Strictly speaking, not everybody is assuming that. Those with a political motivation for assuming so often assume that, and those with a political motivation to assume the opposite often assume the opposite. Those not inclined to let their political inclinations determine their opinion (which includes those cynical enough to see past their political idealism) are a mixed lot. The environment is such a politicized issue that it's hard to take a sensible position without being shouted down by one group of zealots or another. "Obviously mankind couldn't possibly cause global warming" vs "Obviously if we hadn't elected Bush, global warming wouldn't be a problem today."
I, for one, am agnostic about how much mankind has contributed to the current bout of global warming, though I am attracted to some aspects of environmentalism or conservationism for quality of life reasons (I prefer to breathe clean air, etc.)
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?
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.
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.
OMG, you're right! It's not even the most evil, pernicious or destructive of the greenhouse gases. We must sign an international treaty immediately to stop this incredible threat to the earth.
After much research (mid-post), I have discovered that the threat is much more far reaching than mere climate change. We must do something now!
In Pasta we trust, RAmen.
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
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.
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.
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!"
Except that's not a fact. A mere minute with google would have avoided your embarrassment.
Of course, part of the problem is that "global warming" started as a political issue. I'm afraid that its scientific roots were fairly weak to begin with and only started to take shape *after* everyone was worked up over the idea.
:-)
I still remember Bush Sr's take on the problem. He told the environmental groups that he would speak with them on global warming as long as they sent him a scientific expert on the problem. As reported by Paul Harvey at the time (as he gleefully pointed out that book stores were hiding their books on Global Warming in the face of one of the coldest winters in the last hundred years), the environmental groups didn't have a scientific expert they could send!
Oops. Talk about egg on your face.
I assume that's a problem that has been corrected, though now you have "experts" on both sides of the issue.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
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.
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...
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!
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