Slashdot Mirror
Radar Map of Buried Mars Layers Confirms Climate Cycles
Matt_dk writes "A radar instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has essentially looked below the surface of the Red Planet's north-polar ice cap, and found data to confirm theoretical models of Martian climate swings during the past few million years. The new, three-dimensional map using 358 radar observations provides a cross-sectional view of the north-polar layered deposits. 'The radar has been giving us spectacular results,' said Jeffrey Plaut of JPL, a member of the science team for the Shallow Radar instrument. 'We have mapped continuous underground layers in three dimensions across a vast area.'"
Douglas Quaid knew it already.
Yes, but does it coincide with the industrial revolution? Does it fit the hockey stick model?
-Turkey
I can't wait until Mars warms up and gets some moisture. I'm already flipping through astronomy stores for telescopes that will let me watch the penguins from here.
I better post this as anonymous, before the true believers mod me into oblivion. But if we see evidence of climate change on a planet that barely even has an atmosphere to speak of, maybe we're not giving the power our own sun enough scrutiny in the global warming debate.
The newspeak term for that now is "global climate change".
A re-education officer will be along shortly to your location.
Strangely, the outcry from Martian global warming deniers has been muted at best. Perhaps they haven't gotten the news yet.
The newspeak term for that now is "global climate change".
A re-education officer will be along shortly to your location.
Actually, that term was widely held in contempt by the scientific community until it was noted that the term "global warming" actually confuses the issue because climate change doesn't evenly modify the temperature of our climate. In fact, some areas of the globe have cooled of late, but that has little bearing on the global mean temperatures, nor on the localized warming in key areas such as the Arctic. So, much as you may not like the political origins of the term, there's a reason that the media AND the scientific community is using it so widely, now.
The existence of natural climate change on Mars does not rule out anthropogenic climate change on Earth. The shifts in temperature on Mars happened over periods of hundreds of thousands of years. The climate change we're observing on earth has happened in less than 100 years. There's a huge difference between the two phenomena.
My blog
While these results are cool, the obliquity cycle was confirmed in 2002, in a paper in Nature, Orbital forcing of the martian polar layered deposits by Jacques Laskar et al., They used pictures of the layering at the edge of the polar caps, not radar, but its basically the same idea, and they showed good correlation with recent obliquity cycles.
Again, it's cool to see these layers throughout the caps, but I don't think that anyone has doubted the connection with the obliquity / insolation cycles for a while.
The Council of Elders has declared tomorrow a day of commemoration. K'breel, Speaker for the Council, spake thus:
"By Gfa'rdmn, a little over half a year ago, our forces celebrated victory over the plumb-bob-waving monstrosity from the North, having slowly chilled it to death. The Invader from the Plains sits enmired in our sandpit. The Twin by the Crater has begun to stir, but it stood paralyzed by fear for sixty days by the mere sight of the spent husk of a Kinetic Bombardment Force component."
"So thorough has been our dominance of the blue planet's terror craft that they have not since dared to touch our red sands with their filthy metallic fingertips. Yes, their robotic spies continue to flail wildly around our great world - but despite dozens of passes over the pole, and countless radiofrequency emanations beamed down in an effort to re-establish communications with frozen hulk of the Invader from the North, their efforts have revealed nothing but ice! And they report these sightings of "nothing but ice" back to their puerile blue world as though this were somehow a great propaganda victory! The beings from the blue planet are impotent! Their efforts are futile! Rejoice!"
When a junior climatologist suggested that the overflights could perhaps have been part of an effort to use radar map the depth of our ice caps in order to better understand their own world's shrinking ice caps, K'Breel had the dissenter's gelsacs flash-frozen in liquid nitrogen, shattered with a hammer, and the resulting shards thawed in a microwave oven before subsequently roasting them on a spit.
Hmm, the deniers did not actually have anything intelligent to write, so they just modded you down instead.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Right. I'm not at all worried about Martians keeping quiet about global warming. Instead, the problem is when Earth's global warming deniers look upon climate change on Mars as evidence that anthropogenic global warming on Earth is false.
How do Martians know whether it's the rainy season or dry season?
My webcomic
The polar ice cap is 1 million cubic kilometers of water ice. Martian surface gravity is .375 g. Escape velocity is just over 5 kilometers per second. Summer temps are up to 20C. At 1.5 A.U., solar power is about 1/2 that of Earth per square measure. Mars has two moons ripe for mining.
Nobody owns it yet.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Global climate change on Mars certainly helps corroborate the idea that our own climate changes might be natural. The mysogenistic anthropomophists haven't had the last say.
BTW - if you're worried about man's impact on the environment, get off your buttocks, and plant some trees. Trap some carbon. Think of the children.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Look, past facts don't matter, they have a document which claims that we are causing it.
Which is based on, you know, facts.
They can totally ignore the cooling trend over the last ten years,
There isn't a cooling trend over the last 10 years. The only way you get a cooling trend is if you pick the trend start time precisely at the time of the 1998 super-El Nino.
In fact, if you continue the pre-1998 trend line through to today, there are more months which are warmer than the extrapolated trend than there are cooler (see here).
At best you can say that the recent warming has been modest, yet well within the range of natural variability and within the range of the variability predicted by the AOGCM models.
the major shift in sunspot activity which neatly explains other such periods,
There isn't a major shift in sunspot activity which neatly explains "other such periods". The solar irradiance trend has been nearly flat since 1950 (e.g., here), and so fails to explain the subsequent warming.
all because they have passed the point of reason and now it is a purely emotional issue.
Given statements like "In other words, they are the Christians proving their stand by using the Bible. However since these people refuse to see beyond their own narrow view you are the new form of heretic.", you're the one here who is being emotional. And your supposed "reason" is in direct contradiction with actual facts.
"global warming" actually confuses the issue because climate change doesn't evenly modify the temperature of our climate. In fact, some areas of the globe have cooled of late
That's a stupid thing to say. Globally the temperature effectively rises, that's the main trait of the change being talked about. But a number of cretins out there can't see that "global" doesn't imply "uniform". That it gets colder in some places is irrelevant.
By the way, in France it was always called "climate warming" (le rechauffement climatique), even back in the 1990s, when only scientific literature would talk about it. It was never very politicised there anyway, since no one there was enough of a dumbass to consider debating a scientific consensus.
You just got troll'd!
Actually, that term was widely held in contempt by the scientific community until it was noted that the term "global warming" actually confuses the issue because climate change doesn't evenly modify the temperature of our climate.
Interestingly, the U.S. Republican party also promoted the use of the term "climate change", on the grounds that it sounded less scary than "global warming" (here).
With scientists behind the term (for scientific accuracy) and with conservatives also behind the term (for rhetorical purposes), there is no wonder it has been widely adopted.
(minor addition)
TSI is NOT a measure of the sun's total impact on earth. This is well known published science.
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/science/introduction.htm
and
http://www.ukssdc.ac.uk/wdcc1/papers/nature.html
LOL...because no one believed Global Warming.
Or trap some children. Think of the carbon.
Oh the outcry is there, alright, it's just that most Martians can't hear it over the stereos in their SUVs!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
... doesn't even particularly speak to whether or not there can also be anthropogenic climate change on Earth. Natural mechanisms don't preclude human influence.
Tweet, tweet.
global mean temperatures
I wish someone would tell me how you compute the mean temperature of a composite substance like the atmosphere.
Global atmospheric heat content is meaningful. Global mean temperature is not. Unless someone would care to explain how you actually compute it in a physically meaningful way?
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Um, this is the arctic. When you melt that ice, the sea level will remain unchanged.
false. There is a density difference between salt water and 'regular' frozen water. The fact that you don't even know this basic 101 level science really disqualifies you from having any real interpretation of the facts.
Get some sea wter, put it o a glace add some ice cubes and mark the line. See where it is after it melts.
"But, again, we need to talk about significance."
as well as every glacier on the planet.
It doesn't take much of a rise to be significant.
And you link is suspicious. It has a graph that ONLY indicate volcanoes that happen before a cooling, but ignores every other major eruption.
You do understand they climatologist know about the normal cycles?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Cue the global warming deniers in 3, 2, 1...
It looks like the Warmists have beat them to the punch.
This sounds similar to the arguments presented in a 2007 paper that's widely considered to be some kind of joke.
Perhaps you mean that different substances have different heat capacities. That's only a problem if you want to determine the equilibrium temperature, and even that's just a weighted average. But even an unweighted average improves the signal-to-noise ratio of temperature measurements, which is why climatologists routinely speak of global mean temperatures.
And to be really pedantic, "heat content" isn't physically meaningful either. Heat is a type of energy transfer across a thermodynamic system boundary. Systems don't store heat, they store internal energy, which is also measured in Joules but can be transferred as heat or work. (Yes, this distinction is irrelevant. That's my point.)
Incidentally, whenever I get some free time I plan to copy one of your older comments to the climate change article on my homepage and answer it. That's because compared to most other people arguing against abrupt climate change, you seem significantly more scientifically literate. I'd email you when this happens, but I don't know how to get in touch with you other than comments like this one.
actually, this is evidence that climatologists' theoretical models work.
---
Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
A change in climate can be natural or manmade. Earth's climate is changing now because of a manmade increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. That does not mean that all climate change on all planets is manmade!
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
I read that as
Radar Map of Buried Mars Lawyers Confirms Climate Cycles
Back when I was at school those who pointed out how closely the shapes of the continents match either side of the Atlantic were considered dumbasses, because obviously big things like continents couldn't possibly move. That was the scientific concensus, until some of the results started coming in from the International Geophysical Year. (1957...I'm dating myself here aren't I)
Anthropomorphic Global Warming/Global Climate Change may or may not be happening but concensus does not mean shit in science. Evidence is the only thing that actually counts.
The reason why consensus forms in the first place is usually because of evidence. It doesn't always end up being right, but for every consensus overturned by a daring rebel, there are probably 100 that boringly end up being correct after all. Because scientists didn't come to a consensus for the hell of it, they came to one because the evidence was persuasive to most of the people working on the problem.
(And the objection wasn't simply "obviously big things can't move". It was because nobody, including the inventor of the continental drift theory, could work out a mechanism for less-dense continents to move through more-dense oceanic crust. Also, the new seafloor evidence for drift came in 1947 and then throughout the 1950s, not just starting in 1957.)
P.S. It's "anthropogenic", not "anthropomorphic".
I don't like or dislike the term. I dislike the use of scientific research to strong arm a political agenda for either party in this system. Let the scientists do their job, then make rational informed decisions on the outcome. That, evidently, is a hard thing to do these days.
I suppose the climate change found on Mars was also caused by human activity.
Jumping in and blithering about how this disproves global warming.
Guys, we have had climate cycles and ice ages here on Earth as well. They're normal. Global warming is not the same thing.
Translation : Sometimes people are wrong. Therefore let's dismiss anything we don't like as potentially wrong.
You just got troll'd!
So you are the new Wegener, and your radical theory is "It wasn't man made after all, it just happens" and your evidence is "climate always has changed"
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Here's the thing:
No matter WHAT we do, people are going to die...
You cut and paste the rest.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Things arent that dire fool.
The planet has been in 100x worse conditions in the past and rebounded.
You know the real problem ? yes its man made, but its NOT climate change.
Its OVER FARMING, using too much water from water ground tables and from rivers leaving just a trickle. Massive amounts of water is wasted growing rice in dry areas, and growing STUPID cotton where canabis is 100x better - (stupid twit govts)
So dude, what happens when you over use water, less evaporates and less turns to clouds where less falls as rain because STUPID poor FL!CKS clear land and burn down forrests causing MORE dry arid regions.
Wake up call, less rain = less humidity = LESS ice on mountains = shrinking glaciers even if its COLDER than normal, coldness by itself doesnt replenish glaciers.
Whats the sollution? a man made virus to 'reduce populations' ? h1n1 perhaps?
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
You humans make me sick. Cutting down forrests for palm oils or other crap like cows.
Cows should be taxed $50000/cow.
Govts should offer a $1k tax refund for each tree in the backyard that is more than 10ft tall.
Stop buying wooden furniture unless its local woodchip from regrowth forrests.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
While I am not a denier, I will not believe there is a serious problem till the Democrats start to support Nuclear Power; because, Nuclear Power is a proven solution to reducing CO2 while generating large amounts of electrical power.
Tim S.
I was actually thinking of that guy in Colorado (Peilke?) who has long argued that global atmospheric heat content is what we should be talking about. A quick skim doesn't convince me the Essex et al paper is a joke, and an equally quick skim of the replies to it don't convince me the responders have even understood the fundamental physical basis for Essex et al's argument.
You are correct that heat is only one form of internal energy, although physicists have a slightly different take on the nature of heat than chemists, so I don't agree with your characterization of heat as strictly a type of energy transfer. So yes, by all means be pedantic and talk about "atmospheric internal energy". That is a physically meaningful quality, whereas neither you nor anyone else has suggested why taking any kind of average of dry-bulb temperatures is in any way physically interesting. And if it is not physically interesting, it is not climatologically interesting.
But hey, I'm only a physicist, not a climatologist, so clearly not qualified to talk about what is or is not physically meaningful. All I can say is that I still don't understand what anyone thinks they are doing with global average temperature, but whatever it is, it isn't physics.
Judging my scientific literacy based on the comments I make on /. would be a mistake: I try very hard to dumb down my presentation to bring it within reach of the average /. reader. I also try to mention (to the point of boring repetition) that I think global ocean heat content is an important signal in global climate change, and the evidence suggests that it is increasing.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
The problem with nuclear power is it's too expensive. No private insurer is willing to insure it so it has to be backed by government insurance. A recent plant in Canada was canceled because it was going to cost twice as much per KWH as other alternatives.
Looked around for Pielke's work mentioning heat content and found this. Is that a good reference? I agree that internal energy of the Earth is a more robust and useful variable than temperature, but I'd go one step further. That is, a much more useful variable would be the internal energy of the atmosphere and ocean combined. That would eliminate the spurious temperature swings associated with ENSO events that seem to mislead many people. This heat transfer between the atmosphere and oceans wouldn't distort such a metric.
Actually, I'm a physicist too. Never was that good at chemistry. I still think heat is a form of energy transfer, not a state variable. But I'll drop this argument because (like your point) it doesn't seem particularly interesting or relevant.
The internal energy of the atmosphere is a weighted mean of temperatures, where the weightings reflect differing heat capacities. A global average temperature cannot be used to determine the internal energy of the atmosphere because it isn't properly weighted (as I believe you're saying.) But as I've said, even an unweighted average improves the signal-to-noise ratio of temperature trends. More measurements improve the statistics in the same way multi-model ensembles improve climate predictions compared to single-model runs. The global temperature isn't intended as a formal variable, it's simply an easy-to-measure diagnostic of the global climate.
Sounds more like oldspeak to me.
Regards Luke