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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
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.
No true believers are required.
Unlike the Earth (which has a big Moon to anchor things), Mars has huge variations in insolation due to its obliquity and eccentricity cycles. These oscillations drive large variations in climate, which causes the cool layering in the Martian Polar Caps - the so called North Polar Layered Deposits. There are lots of cool pictures of these layers.
While it is true that both the Earth and Mars would exhibit climate changes if the solar luminosity changed, so far I have not heard of any evidence requiring this from Mars. Mars's internal and orbital dynamics are quite enough to keep the climate modelers busy.
There are several hypotheses regarding the warming observed on Mars and Pluto.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Mars is as warm as it's going to get. There are no pirates there, so it can't get any warmer by losing pirates.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
First, you are aware that the solar output (Solar Constant) has been measured since the 1970's ? There is no need to look at distant worlds to see if it is changing - it varies around at about the 0.1 % level.
Second, I would not put any weight on observations of any body we have not observed for more than one orbit - and that includes Pluto and (for climate) Titan. These are not simple bodies.
The general cause of Pluto's warming is well known - a highly elliptical orbit, and it's near (just past) perigee, where it outgases Methane into the atmosphere. That's one of the motivations behind Pluto Express (to get there while there is still a bigger atmosphere). It is staying warm past perigee, but we have no idea if that is normal or not. Similarly, Titan is passing through the equinox (just as we are here on Earth), and that is causing seasonal change. We know that's happening; we have no idea if what we are seeing is normal or not.
Jupiter is so different from the Earth or Mars that I wouldn't use it as an analogy for anything terrestrial, good or bad. (For example, it generates more heat internally than it gets from the Sun.) Having said that, I had not heard of any warming reported there, so a link would be welcomed.
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
actually, this is evidence that climatologists' theoretical models work.
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Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
I read that as
Radar Map of Buried Mars Lawyers Confirms Climate Cycles
Translation : Sometimes people are wrong. Therefore let's dismiss anything we don't like as potentially wrong.
You just got troll'd!
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.