How do global warming environmentalists, such as Al Gore, explain polar ice caps melting on Mars.?

Question

For several years astronomers have observed Mars ice caps melting. There are no SUV's or fossil burning industries there. In a similar way, Earth is warming slightly now but it also warmed up during the middle ages. There were no SUV's or fossil burning industries there then either.

Answer 1

It must be our fault. I'm sure that the fumes from your big SUV's are jumping through the space medium and melting their ice caps as well.

You better get rid of that SUV, Buddy or otherwise you might be responsible for the destruction of our whole solar system.

Just kidding:)

Answer 2

One of the "forcings", as climate scientists call it, in the cycles of change is the planetary orbit and the timing of summer.  The exact timing of summer depends on the alignment of the spin axis (when it is pointed most sunward, it's the summer solstice and when it's pointed most away, it's the winter solstice) but the duration of summer and winter depend on whether this occurs when the planet is moving faster or slower in its orbit at that time (elliptical orbits change speed, perfectly circular orbits do not - but there are no planets with perfectly circular orbits in our solar system).

Short summers and long winters tend toward ice ages.  Short winters and long summers tend toward melting.  Then there are other effects we don't necessarily understand yet - though we do know that Mars has global dust storms which lower the temperature quite a bit (which gave rise to the "nuclear winter" model), and it might be coming out of a period of those and thus warming up.

In this case, it's the south polar cap that's shrinking.  The southern area is at higher elevation than the northern pole (kinda like Earth) and tends to remain colder.  If the shift in season timing means that the south is getting longer summers, that would warm the cap and shrink it.  This thickens the atmosphere (Mars' caps are partly dry ice).  Further, the thicker atmosphere would hold more heat and tend to further the process.

Answer 3

All planets go through a period of heating and cooling. Mars has a completely different makeup as a planet then we do currently so comparing it is like comparing apples to SUV's.

The issue with our planet is the buildup of gasses in our atmoshpere which is weakning it and allowing the far more harsh rays along the solar spectrum (ultra, x-ray and gamma) to penetrate to the surface bit by bit which is not a natural cycle of the planet. How do we know? Fossil record and radioactive material trends found on this planet which can be dated to what is currently accepted as the formation date of this planet and the surrounding solar system from the gassy disk that surrounded our newborn sun.

Will the planet survive us? Sure, we are only exagerating it's cycle. Will we survive what we are doing to it? No, probably not.

Answer 4

Let's put it this way - some scientists may be idiots, but is it likely that most of them are? They know very well that the Earth has warmed and cooled in the past. Yet most scientists who know about such things firmly assert that most of the recent global warming is a human-caused phenomenon. There's a couple reasons why:

THE RATE OF CHANGE. Biologists have measured how long it takes animals and plants to 'migrate'... or to change their habitats so they same in roughly the same kind of environment. You would think that pretty much all of them would be fairly evolved to make such changes as the Earth's environment changed throughout its history. Yet the rate of temperature increase we're seeing far outstrips most of their abilities to compensate. If it continues unabated, we may see huge-scale decimations of plant and animal wildlife.

COMPARISONS TO THE PAST. Right now the carbon dioxide level is VERY high. Our most accurate measurements can only reach back 650,000 years, and it's never been as high during that time as it is now. Using less accurate measurements, you would have to go back 40 million years to get to an analogous carbon dioxide level. Atmospheric methane shows a similar trend. Most of this change can be traced back to human activity chronologically.

WE KNOW WE CAN AFFECT THINGS GLOBALLY. Remember that hole in the ozone layer? It's still there, and bigger than ever, actually. Not to mention extinction of species we know we've caused, habitats we know we've wiped out, and other large-scale changes.

But sweeping that all aside for a second, suppose we're NOT at fault for ANY of it. Does it really matter? Wouldn't it behoove us to counteract a global temperature change before it inhibited our activities too severely. To put it another way - even if we haven't affected global systems in the past, it is in our interest to do so in the future. Even if global warming is completely natural, not stopping it could have major negative side effects!

If your argument is that the SUN is causing the changes in Earth's temperature, you'd be dead wrong. Recent analysis of the sun's diameter have lead some scientists to the conclusion that the sun has been SHRINKING during times in the last century, perhaps as part of a growth/shrinking cycle. Since the temperature trend has been constantly upward and not shrinking and growing, that would tend to argue against any solar size correlation for the observed global temperature data as well.

Answer 5

Maybe there are SUV's and heavy industry on mars... and during the middle ages. hahahaha.
I'd say the sun is heating up. The world will end in a couple decades.

Answer 6

Blame Bush! If Gore were president there would be no global warming on Earth or Mars.

Answer 7

You see, MARS is not THE EARTH. The earth has the PLANTS. You see the difference. Living things around. But in Mars you'll see stones and rocks and soil. Its atmosphere is made of CO2 but in earth there is abundant (now it is lesser) OXYGEN.

Answer 8

They melt seasonally, and then they re-freeze. So, it is entirely different from the situation on earth.

Answer 9

Mars has dick to do with earth. And there not talking about earth getting warmer, there talking about the unprecedented rate at which it's getting warmer.

Answer 10

Anyone who listens to Al Gore has their head in a very dark, smelly place.