Evidence Of Glaciers On Mars Suggests Recent Climate Activity 101
Last year, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured high-resolution images of the Red Planet which showed many mesas, valleys, and rock debris which appeared to be (geologically speaking) recent formations. A team of scientists from Brown University analyzed the photographs and found evidence that the terrain was carved by large glaciers much more recently than they thought possible. Climate activity on Mars was thought to have quieted over 3 billion years ago, but these glaciers would have been around within the last 10-100 million years.
"The finding could have implications for the life-on-Mars argument by strengthening the case for liquid water. Ice can melt two ways: by temperature or by pressure. As currently understood, the Martian climate is dominated by sublimation, the process by which solid substances are transformed directly to vapor. But ice packs can exert such strong pressure
at the base to produce liquid water, which makes the thickness of past glaciers on its surface so intriguing."
Re:Trolls are too fast (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:mods? (Score:1, Insightful)
That comment in particular could be modded Insightful because it is saying that here is evidence of radical climate change occurring without contribution by mankind. It is an interesting counter-example to the insane amount of global warming FUD being spewed.
Posting AC to protect my karma from the enviro-knuckleheads.
Re:Where was Al Gore when Mars needed him? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:mods? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:mods? (Score:4, Insightful)
It Would Still Be Irrelevant As To The Causes Of Climate Change On Earth.
We have satellites, telescopes, and sensors monitoring every last thing you could possibly imagine about the sun. Unless the sun has some sort of magical powers, if the sun is changing in some way or another, *we'd know about it*. We don't need "planetary proxies" to tell us if the sun is getting brighter or whatnot; we have the hard data *right here*.
Oh, and for the idiots who just assume that the IPCC scientists forgot to consider the sun: there are about 50 peer reviewed papers [ucar.edu] summed up in the technical report (pretty much every recent peer-reviewed paper on the subject) related to the sun, changes in the sun, historical changes in the sun, how the various forms of solar radiation interact with earth processes, and so on. Now, how many of them have *you* read that lets you feel qualified to hold a contrary view?
Stop babbling talking points and look at the data. (Score:3, Insightful)
Please direct your attention to the record of global temperatures from 1880-2007. [earth-policy.org]
Let's take a look at 1998 & 1999. 1998 was the third warmest year on record, with an average global temperature of 14.72 C. The following year dropped 0.26 C, and it took until 2005 to top that temperature at 14.76 C, with last year being 14.73 C.
OH NOES! GLOBAL WARMING IS TEH LIE!
1995 - 14.35
1996 - 14.46 (+.11)
1997 - 14.49 (+.03)
1998 - 14.48 (-.01)
1999 - 14.52 (+.04)
2000 - 14.57 (+.05)
2001 - 14.56 (-.01)
2002 - 14.59 (+.03)
2003 - 14.66 (+.07)
2004 - 14.68 (+.02)
2005 - 14.68 (+.00)
Do you see the clear, upwards trend once statistical noise is removed now?
P.S.: What inconvenient global warming on Mars?
Mars temperatures explained. [realclimate.org]
Also, please explain what common source could be warming Mars and Earth during the past few years when Total Solar Irradiance was on the decline from 2000-2005.
They're the same, really. (Score:3, Insightful)
So, outside of the (American) political and religious ties between the two factions, there's quite a lot of similarity in mindset that goes behind both sets of beliefs which ultimately boils down to a distrust of science in favor of a gut-held, intuitive belief.
So if ozone can soak up this much UV-B and UV-C, why can't carbon dioxide and methane soak up some infrared? Again, not only have you ignored the real numbers (by saying 1% of 1%), but you've ignored evidence to the contrary that a very small concentration of gas can have a large effect on a particular spectrum of light because it "seems" illogical to your gut instinct.