Truth of Myth ? It has been said that global warming isnt only happening on earth, but throughout the solar?

Question

system.

Answer 1

It's true. The ice caps are melting...on Mars (see the first link below). Similar warming is occurring on other planets as well (see the second link below).

Answer 2

Give the best answer to Trevor - he's exactly right.

To sum up, basically a few planets and planetary bodies in our solar system are warming. Others are cooling. If global warming were due to the Sun, then every body should be warming.

Those that are warming are doing so for various reasons. Pluto for example just came out of its equivalent of summer. Mars is warming due to dust storms darkening its surface.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/04/070404-mars-warming.html

I got my bachelor's degree in astrophysics and my master's in physics while doing my research in astrochemistry. I can tell you that we can measure the temperatures on other planets by spectroscopic analysis from instruments on Earth or with instruments like the Mars Rover or spacecraft like Voyager.

http://space.newscientist.com/channel/space-tech/mars-rovers/dn4678
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Saturn

Ben O is really grasping at straws trying to make an argument that is not supported by the scientific data.

Answer 3

Mostly myth. A few planets are warming, but not all.

And for different reasons. The NASA scientists who discovered Mars is warming say it's because of giant dust storms unique to Mars.

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/research/2007/marswarming.html

It's definitely not the Sun. Solar radiation has been decreasing (a little) lately.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6290228.stm

More details here:

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11642

Ben O - Scientists measure the temperature on other planets quite accurately by spectroscopic analysis of the light they reflect.

The temperature data shows a warming of about 1 degree with an uncertainty of maybe 0.2 degree. This graph shows both:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif

Good research is necessary to in order to understand the science and data that supports global warming.

Ben O (2) It gets a little more sophisticated than that. As temperatures warm, molecules spin and vibrate more. Careful spectroscopic analysis can measure that, and temperature can be determined, even from things that are definitely not hot, such as Pluto.

Answer 4

the two are not related ,mars is not round it has a very slow wobble and when one part is closer to the sun it is hotter there

Earth is another ball game

No not EVERY ONE believes that ,only uninformed or people who have bought the skeptic propaganda, often religious people believe Global warming is a Myth, because they do not know what is going on in the rest of the world
they don`t know about the 150.000 people dying annually related to global warming,this is probably double by now

In Mexico at this moment over a million people have water up to their roofs because of rains of super evaporation over the forests ,this has never happened before .
In China thousands are running for their lives from dust storms that are burying their towns and villages ,and northern China is becoming a giant desert.

there are incidents all over the planet ,maybe not in your street yet .

But when the price of beer goes up because of shortage of potable water ,

or food prices hit the roof because of crop loss and desertification and subsequent land loss all related to Global Warming .you will stop these kind of remarks

Just about Everybody with half a brain knows Global warming is here ,the disputes are about whether or not Humans are a factor (and many believe they are )or whether it is 100% a Natural phenomena

Answer 5

It is true that other planets in our solar system are warming. Mars, pluto, Saturn. Mars can be explained by the frequent amount of wobbles that Mars goes through. Mars wobbles more frequently than earth due to the small moon Mars has and it does not have the same amount of gravitational pull that our moon and earth does. The others can not be accounted for a reason of why. So in a sense the sun could very possibly be the reason these planets are warming.

So with that being said, the sun has accounted for much of the warming of earth in the past century. Let me explain why. NOAA has charts showing the sun's output with good correlation to Sea Surface Temps... Read the article below.

http://www.oar.noaa.gov/spotlite/archive/spot_sunclimate.html

The next article you can read is about the correlation of sun spots and the Earths surface temperature.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/sun_output_030320.html
(check out the graph)

So you cannot not rule out the sun. Here's an example. The sun's output and the sea surface temps are in correlation meaning the sun has warmed the oceans for the past century or so. The warming oceans cause more CO2 to be released from the oceans. See man is only responsible for .06% of the total amount of CO2 released on earth. Meaning nature releases the remaining 99.94%. So we do not know that the .06% is the breaking point or not. So if CO2 is a driving factor of climate then then the sun helped the ocean release more CO2 which will also cause more heat to be trapped in the earth's atmosphere. That's if you believe CO2 is a driving factor of climate. Here's one thing that I don't like about CO2. . In the first 30 feet of the atmosphere, on the average, outward radiation from the Earth, which is what CO2 is supposed to affect, how much [of the reflected energy] is absorbed by water vapor? In the first 30 feet, 80 percent, okay? ...: And how much is absorbed by carbon dioxide? Eight hundredths of one percent. One one-thousandth as important as water vapor. You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide. This statement came from Reid Bryson, Emeritus Professor and founding chairman of the University of Wisconsin Department of Meteorolog (now the Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences). So many scientist believe that water vapor is much more important than CO2 as far as the greenhouse effect goes. So what I'm trying to say is that you cannot rule out the sun. That's the problem with all the Pro Anthropogenic Global Warming people of the world. They won't recognize other information to factor into there beliefs. I recognize both sides and take everything into consideration. That's how science works. Climate models?? well if you want to read more about them just read this site.

http://xtronics.com/reference/globalwarming.htm

Answer 6

True - It has been SAID that global warming isnt only happening on earth, but throughout the solar.

but just because it has been said doesn't make it true.

huge body of evidence of anthropogenic climate change on earth http://www.ipcc.ch

can all be safely ignored because a few photos of Mars, on a totally different orbit cycle show no polar bears, and someone funded by the oil co, or big corp media said so - so who do you trust?

Answer 7

Thank you for that great example of scientific quackery Trevor.

The IPCC claims to have found a 0.6 degree warming over last century with a 0.4 degree range of uncertainty - and we have how many weather stations on the earth?

The other planets have been viewed through a telescope and you think you know which ones are warming and why.

(edit) Hey Bob,

In my experience spectroscopic analysis is used to measure the temperature of a hot object from radiation emitted. I always thought that measuring light reflected from an object is very useful for determining what colour an object is.

(edit) Trevor

I was refering to your statement that the solar system is cooling ever so slightly.

It's only recently that we discovered that Pluto wasn't big enough to be a planet and you're predicting it's weather.

Most of what you said might be valid, but it doesn't support your interplanatery weather reports in any way.

Many complicated statements do not a proof make.

(edit)
To Byderule

You don't need to be religeous to have blind faith. That statistic you refered to is from probably the only paper ever published on the subject in a serious journal. It's only claim to fame is that it is so extreme in its findings (otherwise we would never have heard of it) that it has become an article of faith for believers.

No serious researcher since then has claimed that global warming is actually killing people as more people die in cold snaps than heat waves.

Also, why is it that the believers on this forum seem to be bad at physics? Planets don't wobble towards the sun. Mars is oblate as is the Earth. It has been speculated that these planets would receive slightly different levels of radiation depending on how large the projected area of the planet exposed to the sun is.

Answer 8

There is some truth in that Earth isn't the only place in the solar system where 'global warming' can be found but it's not true to say that the solar system is warming. If the solar system is taken as a whole then it's cooling ever so slightly.

All told there's nine planets in the solar system (including Pluto which was recently demoted from the status of planet) and 169 moons. Most of the moons orbit Jupiter (63), Saturn (60) and Uranus (27). In all our solar system consists of 178 planets and moons.

Warming has been observed on just 7 of them and in each case it's due to reasons unique to that soar body (Jupiter's moon Triton is also warming but we don't know why). More solar bodies are cooling than warming although most show no signs of significant temperature change either way.

Sometimes people make the mistake of blaming the Sun for the warming on Earth. However, it's clear that the Sun isn't to blame, I'll explain why in more detail later.

Historically the finger of blame could have been pointed to the Sun as the cause or contributor to warming or cooling here on Earth. It goes through a number of cycles which affect it's heat output (total solar irradiance or TSI). These solar variations do affect our climate but it's a slow process, the difference between insolation maxima and minima is a small one, not enough to make dramatic or sudden changes to our climate but enough to have an effect when measured over hundreds or thousands of years.

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Here's a more thorough examination of the Sun's role in connection with global and solar warming...

A recent paper by Lockwood and Frohlich published in the proceedings of the Royal Society examines the evidence that the Sun is responsible for recent global warming. Those who advocate such theories have proposed several mechanisms for this to take place. One proposal is that the Sun simply got hotter, i.e., that the total energy output of the Sun ('total solar irradiance' or TSI) increased. Another proposal is that an increase in ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the Sun has caused changes in high-altitude atmospheric chemistry, leading to changes in the lower atmosphere and hence to changes in climate. Yet another proposal suggests that changes in the Sun’s magnetic field have blocked cosmic rays from striking Earth and thus preventing the seeding of clouds by cosmic rays, and warming our planet in consequence.

All these changes are associated with changes in magnetic field strength, therefore with the cosmic rays incident on the Earth. Also, satellites have directly measured total solar irradiance (TSI) for decades. Hence if some trend in TSI, or solar UV, or cosmic rays, were the root cause of modern global warming, we’ll be able to detect a trend in measurements of TSI or cosmic rays. If TSI is going up and/or solar magnetic field strength is going up and/or cosmic rays are going down, that would make the solar-cause more plausible. If not, then solar changes simply can’t be the cause of recent global warming.

Finding the trend in these variables is complicated by the fact that in addition to getting higher or lower, they oscillate up and down with the solar cycle. The Sun has a roughly 11-year cycle, during which the sunspot count goes up and down, as do TSI and magnetic field strength. Because of the change in magnetic field strength, the count of cosmic rays striking Earth fluctuates on this same cycle. Here are the measurments of sunspot counts (figure1 - R), solar magnetic field (figure 2 - Fs), cosmic ray counts (figure 3 - C), total solar irradiance (figure 4 - TSI), and Earth’s global temperature anomaly (figure 5 - ∆) for about the last 30 years.

Figures 1 to 5 (from Lockwood and Frohlich) - http://profend.com/temporary/lw1.jpg

To determine the trend, we must remove the cyclic influence, leaving only the secular change: the trend. Lockwood & Frohlich used a novel, and (in my professional opinion) very robust and reliable method, to do so. They determined these trends:

Figures 6 to 11 (from Lockwood and Frohlich) - http://profend.com/temporary/lw2.jpg

Clearly solar activity was on the increase, as indicated by increased sunspot counts, increased solar magnetic field strength, decreased cosmic ray counts, and increase TSI, UNTIL about 1985. Since then, sunspot count is down, solar magnetic field strength is down, cosmic ray counts are up, and TSI is down.

Every one of these factors would tend to cool Earth’s climate. But Earth’s temperature (according to both GISS and HadCRU) has kept going up. None of the proposed solar influences which would warm the Earth is going in the right direction to do so. In fact, over the last 30 years none of them has gone in a single direction; they’ve all gone up then down, or down then up. But Earth’s temperature has marched inexorably higher. It’s called global warming.

The result is crystal-clear: it’s not the Sun.

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ADDED COMMENT TO BEN O

With all due respect, in order to retain credibility you may wish to remove or significantly edit your answer. It gives the impression you know very little about science and astronomy. I'm sure that's not the case and to demonstrate your knowledge of these subjects perhaps you'd like to pick through my answer and substantiate your claim that it's 'scientific quackery'.

To avoid future hypocrisy, I assume you'll avoid mentioning warming in the solar system or claiming that the Sun is responsible for global warming. After all, by your own admission we're unable to ascertain what's happening in space.

I don't claim to be an expert on this subject but my research team includes two astrophysicists and they're the real experts - that's where I get my information from.

As to the number of weather stations on Earth - I don't know, I'm not sure anyone has ever counted them. Certainly more than 10,000, could be as many as 50,000. In reality though the number is effectively infinite as there are many 'mobile' weather stations constantly reporting from around the globe - these include weather balloons, ships, planes and of couse, satellites. We now have the entire surface of the planet being monitored. Ain't technology wonderful (unless you're a climate change skeptic).

Answer 9

check out http://www.iceagenow.com