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LIGHTEN UP, MARS
The red planet is becoming toasty:
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 …
You betcha. On Mars, it’s all about dark colours. That kid from the Learnium was right:
Fenton’s team unearthed heat maps of the Martian surface from Nasa’s Viking mission in the 1970s and compared them with maps gathered more than two decades later by Mars Global Surveyor. They found there had been widespread changes, with some areas becoming darker.
When a surface darkens it absorbs more heat, eventually radiating that heat back to warm the thin Martian atmosphere: lighter surfaces have the opposite effect.
There you have it. We have much to learn from the Learnium.
I heard this speculative explanation on teh rdio the other day. No mention was made of the shrinking ice caps which I think knocks this theoryu on teh head.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 04 30 at 12:41 PM • permalinkThey found that Mars was experiencing global warming a couple of years ago. The problem was that it kind of knocked a hole in the “carbon emissions” theory for us here on Earth. This latest theory (based on “modeling”) was supposed to be a way of explaining away the pesky Mars data:
“its Martian dust storms! Reflectivity! No lessons in it for us!”
But all it did was refocus attention on global warming on other globes, so the exercise backfired.Posted by daddy dave on 2007 04 30 at 12:46 PM • permalinkto put it another way.
Fact: Mars is experiencing global warming. We’ve known this since 2001.
Speculation: this is caused by dust storms changing the reflectivity of the surface.Posted by daddy dave on 2007 04 30 at 02:01 PM • permalinkBack here on earth, I found this bit of monkey business by Gore to be interesting - in a sinister kind of way.
But what caused the wind on Mars, and what caused this Martian wind to be so selective about where it deposits Martian dust?
Posted by papertiger on 2007 04 30 at 03:18 PM • permalinkHey, would it be alright with you if I listed all the planets that are experiencing global warming concurrently with Mars?
How about I only list the planets which are not observably warming up? (hint - it’s a much shorter list)Posted by papertiger on 2007 04 30 at 03:22 PM • permalink#10 oh they’ve got some explanation, demonstrated in their computer simulation, about how it’s just a cyclical thing on Mars that will reverse in the fullness of time.
Posted by daddy dave on 2007 04 30 at 03:24 PM • permalinkAccording to “Ockham’s razor” (ie the theory with fewest assumptions is the best), all these global warming effects across the solar system most likely have a single, common cause.
Posted by daddy dave on 2007 04 30 at 03:28 PM • permalink#13 - Daddy Dave: I think it’s tied to all that heat coming from Wronwright’s back yard.
RebeccaH, that would contradict the accepted speculation.
Posted by daddy dave on 2007 04 30 at 08:32 PM • permalinksorta O/T
ABC612 Brisbane: Flannery’s concerned about Queensland proposed use of recycled water; it’s much too precious to be used in power stations and should only be used for drinking.
OK, so tell us Mr Flannery, who must forego power so that this water won’t be used?
*****I caught the tail end of his… sorry, I have no idea what you’d call it. He was raving about us “Losing the Great Barrier Reef if we don’t do something”.
Flannery’s subtext is always: nobody except those who are prepared to live as hunter-gatherers belong in Australia.
Everything he says leads to this conclusion.
There needs to be a new political label for people like that. He’s not socialist, not really: socialists accept industry, they just have wrong-headed ideas about how it should be run. Flannery doesn’t like industrialised society in any form.Posted by daddy dave on 2007 04 30 at 09:26 PM • permalinkdaddy,
I’m curious to know how Flannery and those like him got to the dizzying heights they have achieved without industrialised society.
*****Of course so many swallow Flannery et al’s propaganda hook, line and stinker.
*****seen advertised on the ABC “Coming SOON”
CRUDE
Wait for it. It’s all about, are you sitting down? How we are going to run out of oil.
So many po-faced so-called experts telling us how to live for, after all, how would we cope if our kids/grandkids said to us “All that oil, and you BURNT it?”
We’re going to run out in 15 years….I’m getting this funny feeling… er, deja vu?
#20, Spot on Kae:
» 1874 – State geologist of Pennsylvania said that the U.S. had only enough oil to last four years.
» 1885 – U.S. Geological Survey said that California had “little or no chance of finding oil.” California would go on to become one of the United States’ largest domestic oil suppliers. The Golden State has produced more than 7.5 billion barrels of oil in the last quarter-century alone.
» 1914 – The U.S. Bureau of Mines claimed that the country had only a 10-year supply of oil.
» 1916 – The U.S. Bureau of Mines warned about “a crisis of the first magnitude.”
» 1940 – The U.S. Bureau of Mines predicted that the U.S. would exhaust its domestic oil reserves by 1954.
» 1969 – According to estimates, the state of Oklahoma had 125 million barrels of oil left in the ground. Over the next quarter-century, Oklahoma would produce 4.5 billion barrels of crude oil.
» 1972 – The Club of Rome estimated that only 550 billion barrels of oil remained in the earth. In just the last two decades, however, the world has used 600 billion.
» 1980 – Energy Secretary James Schlesinger announced that America’s “energy future is bleak” and likely to grow bleaker. Schlesinger warned about “chronic stringency” in the decades ahead. By the mid-1980s, a worldwide glut of oil drove prices down from a high of over $60 per barrel to under $20 per barrel (2004 dollars). Prices remained under $30 per barrel (dropping to as little as $12) until 2004.
» 1997 – British oil analyst Colin Campbell predicted peak world production was just around the corner and claimed that the world was on the brink of war, starvation and possible extinction.
The rest of the article tackles a few other myths (eg, that the US is dependent on Saudi oil (it isn’t) and that most of the US’s energy comes from oil (it doesn’t)).
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2007 04 30 at 10:27 PM • permalinkKae, Art, (No) Difference of Opinion was a real humdinger last night: At first I thought the swarmy Irishman was just one of those business types who are overly concerned to be seen as cool by their teenage kids. But when I saw his hidden agenda (gas-is-better-than-coal), I lifted my opinion of him from ‘complete tosser’ to ‘common or garden shonk’.
In terms of balance though, it reminded me of furious undergraduate debates covering the entire political spectrum from Trotsky to Stalin.
Good-oh, Big Jim, so I didn’t miss anything?
I thought I’d like to watch the 60 Minutes piece on Aussies in Iraq, it looked like a fee-good piece, with Aussie soldiers saying that they have to be there and they are helping the locals. One interviewed, when asked when it would be time for him to leave, answered “When my government says it’s time to leave and let Iraqis stand on their own.” (paraphrased).
Then, at the end of the intro piece was the Bush bashing and the US bashing and the Illegal War and the Invasion.
I don’t think I’ll bother.
#25, Big Jim, I’m glad I missed it.
By the way, who do I talk to about getting carbon credits for not watching the ABC?
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2007 04 30 at 11:53 PM • permalinkSurely darker areas on a heat map indicate lower temperatures.
Posted by flying pigs over mecca on 2007 05 01 at 03:57 AM • permalink#28 To make my point clear, if that is so then why does the article then mention that darker areas absorb more heat?
Posted by flying pigs over mecca on 2007 05 01 at 04:02 AM • permalinkIt may already be too late for the limited reflection capability of mirror surfaced hat umbrellas to work.
We need to reconsider and go directly to Plan 9 and resurface everything with reflective materials.
All roads, cars, farms, houses, buildings, schools, sports fields, trees, open lots, deserts, mountains, forests…everything needs to be mirrored to save the earth from deadly global warming.
We’ll also need funding for a crash program to develop floaty reflective material to cover the oceans with. The materials will also need to be flexible enough to allow for the natural wave action of the oceans.
Must respect the ocean’s need to have waves. Just because our world is coming to an end and we have to panic and invent all sorts of new things and cover everything, even the birds in the air with reflective materials, doesn’t mean we can mess around with the natural processes that our organic environment depends on for long term sustainable health, right?
This attempt to explain away the warming of Mars might work if Earth and Mars were the only planets getter warmer. But that is not the case.
Jupiter: warming.
Neptune’s moon Triton: warming.
Pluto: warming.
All of this at the same time that Earth and Mars are warming. I’m sure it’s all just an amazing coincidence. Or maybe an interplanetary conspiracy!
Due to satellite measurement of tropospheric warming trends,day time cooling and nightime heating, it is safe to say that both Earth and Mars warming are of the same origin, using the same method and mechanism.
On Mars it’s dark patches acting as heat sinks during the day and space heaters at night. On Earth it’s concrete jumgles acting as heat sinks during the day and space heaters at night.
Sundog add Neptune and Uranus to your list.Posted by papertiger on 2007 05 01 at 11:38 AM • permalinkSilver spray paint on all roadways - AGW solved.
Hey is there some sort of prize money or award? Where do I collect?Posted by papertiger on 2007 05 01 at 02:07 PM • permalink#19 daddydave, teh word is: MISANTHROPE
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 05 01 at 07:13 PM • permalinkThere is no need to worry about energy. We have enough coal and uranium alone to last thousands of years.
By which time, we should have gotten fusion going ... and inter-stellar space flight :-)
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 05 01 at 07:17 PM • permalinkI just realized that tin foil hats, by reflecting sunlight harmlessly back out into space, are actually good for the environment.
Somebody lock me up, quick.Posted by daddy dave on 2007 05 01 at 11:33 PM • permalink#36, papertiger:
You’re screwing the pooch by skipping ahead to collecting the reward.
1: There’s many billions of dollars in research and development grants to be gathered up into our pockets.
2: There’s new markets to exploit and manufacturing of reflective materials to be monopolized.
3: Gain control of the Union of Reflective Material Appliers and all the skim associated with such control.
4: Buy politicians and force the creation of protectionist legislation and branch out to global monopolies and control mechanisms.
5: Create a Cult of Personality around ourselves and get elevated to demi-god status with all the intendant perks and privileges.
6: Allow ourselves to be installed as the global ruling Oligarchy for life with the annual paycheck equal to 10% of world trade and product.
7: Accept award certificate (suitable for framing) and the prize money.
Last: Pad retirement fund with fees from the talk circuit.
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