Someone Check the Thermostat! Part 2
In the past, I have argued that it is odd that climate scientists ignore the changes in solar activity in their models. Despite the fact the sun's activity is at a very high level (vs. the past several hundred years) the most recent IPCC report says they think that earth's temperatures would have fallen in the 20th century absent anthropogenic effects. So then why is this happening:
Mars is being hit by rapid climate change and it is happening so fast that the red planet could lose its southern ice cap,
writes Jonathan Leake.Scientists from Nasa say that Mars has warmed by about 0.5C
since the 1970s. This is similar to the warming experienced on Earth
over approximately the same period.Since there is no known life on Mars it suggests rapid changes in planetary climates could be natural phenomena.
The
mechanism at work on Mars appears, however, to be different from that
on Earth. One of the researchers, Lori Fenton, believes variations in
radiation and temperature across the surface of the Red Planet are
generating strong winds.In
a paper published in the journal Nature, she suggests that such winds
can stir up giant dust storms, trapping heat and raising the planet's
temperature.
Almost every planet in the Solar System has been found to be warming over the last several decades. At what point do we turn our attention, at least in part, to Mr. Sun? (Hat tip Q&O Blog)
