Global Warming on Mars -- and Jupiter, Pluto, Neptune

[Ace Pace]

Dtech

The entire solar system appears to be warming up lately. What's the root cause?


As an update to my story earlier this month on the discovery of global warming on Mars, I thought it appropriate to survey the rest of the solar system. Global warming was detected on Jupiter last year, and the warming is apparently behind the formation of a second red spot. Global warming on Neptune's moon Triton has also been noted, with severe atmospheric changes as a result. And even tiny Pluto has experienced moderate warming in recent years, with temperatures rising a full 3.5 degrees.

The common denominator in all these cases, the Earth included, is of course the Sun, which is in the middle of an extremely active period at present. The last time it was so active was during the Medieval Warm Period of 700 years ago, a period where the Earth was warmer than it is today. Interestingly enough, the period in which it was least active (the Maunder Minimum) corresponds with the Little Ice Age the earth experienced in the 17th century.

Such correlations are causing many scientists to consider the Sun the primary cause of terrestrial climate change. The initial problem with this theory was that the changes in solar flux didn't appear to be enough to account for the warming.

However the research of scientist Henrik Svensmark of the Danish Space Research Institute has provided the missing link. Increased solar activity not only warms the earth directly, it increases the strength of the solar winds. This reduces the amount of cosmic radiation striking the earth, which directly reduces the formation rate of clouds. Less clouds = more warming.

Astrophysicist Nir Shaviv reconstructed 550 million years of Earth's climate change history. He found that 2/3 of the temperature variance could be explained by changes in cosmic flux alone, without even considering the direct influence of solar heating.

This has always been a weak point of CO2-based models, which have never been able to succesfully explain these warming and cooling trends in our past.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Svensmark and Shaviv. Again. This is getting fucking old.

What next from the tired-old-sceptic-arguments-locker?

"HAY GUYS!11 VOLCANOES PUT OUT MORE CO2 THAN HOOMANS!!1!"

[Braedley]

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, this meeting is to decide our scapegoat for global warming. I hereby nominate that the sun be our scapegoat. Any other nominations? Alright then, all in favour? All opposed? Motion passed.

[Gustav32Vasa]

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, this meeting is to decide our scapegoat for global warming. I hereby nominate that the sun be our scapegoat. Any other nominations? Alright then, all in favour? All opposed? Motion passed.

How will we destroy the sun?

[Darth Tanner]

We'll have to build one of these,



I see no possible downside for this plan, just think of the increased energy prices we'll have when the street lights are running 24/7 and every gas, oil or electric heater is set to max. Not to mention the bonus to the construction industry as humanity desperately burryies into the ground to survive.
We'll make a fortune...

[Velthuijsen]

Oh man, people need to do research before they start shouting stuff like this.
A study done over several decades (and including quite a lot of the land area of the earth) came to the conclusion that less not more sunlight is reaching the earth. This study also found a likely source of this sunlight blocking. Dust particles released by human actions (and the subsequent shift of cloud formation at higher altitudes).

So if the entire solar system is warming up but the earth is receiving less of the suns energy then a few decades ago it must mean that something else is preventing the earth from cooling. So I guess they just scored a goal for the the global warming due to greenhouse gases advocates.

note: Heard about the sunlight thingie and dust particles on BBC Horizons.

[Gustav32Vasa]

I see no possible downside for this plan, just think of the increased energy prices we'll have when the street lights are running 24/7 and every gas, oil or electric heater is set to max. Not to mention the bonus to the construction industry as humanity desperately burryies into the ground to survive.
We'll make a fortune...

Excellent.

[Feil]

While it's great that we can all chuckle about our collective brilliance, perhaps maybe for those of us who are less well informed people should offer arguments (or links thereto). I, for one, would actually like to see the counterargument to this, if one exists, rather than vacuous me-tooing spam about how stupid the OP is. You know, like it says in the rules?

[Ghost Rider]

While it's great that we can all chuckle about our collective brilliance, perhaps maybe for those of us who are less well informed people should offer arguments (or links thereto). I, for one, would actually like to see the counterargument to this, if one exists, rather than vacuous me-tooing spam about how stupid the OP is. You know, like it says in the rules?

You mean aside from the fact the idiots are trying to say that Global warming on Earth is nothing to worry about because we'll throw up the red herring that other planets have similar trends, but then doesn't tell the fact that Earth is expericing it at a rate that NONE of the other planets are?

Because we all know that the Sun is major contribution to our Global warming trend, and the scietific community are just numbskulls for never exploring that angle.

[Velthuijsen]

Feil, I'll link to an older thread on this board about the sun burning hotter.

The original article has some other possible explanations. And some more of the links & explanations you asked for.

[Teleros]

Certainly interesting, but I'd like some more info before daring to call them right or wrong .
Still, given how far out both Pluto and Neptune are I'd expect them to be warmed a hell of a lot less (weaker solar wind & weaker direct sunlight) - the article gives 3 / 3.5*F for both planets - so it would be nice to see how much both of these are expected to affect Earth. The article mentioned one study which leads to a pretty useless page (about lectures at some institute or other ), the author of which appeared on "The Great Global Warming Swindle" - so other sources would be nice to say the least.

[FTeik]

How much of a role does the ecliptic way the planets move around the sun play? I mean, once they are further away from the sun and then they are a lot closer.

[Braedley]

How much of a role does the ecliptic way the planets move around the sun play? I mean, once they are further away from the sun and then they are a lot closer.

Not a hell of a lot. With the possible exception of Pluto. Of Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Neptune, Mars is the most eccentric, with an eccentricity of 0.0934. This means the major axis is 1.0044 times as long as the minor axis.

[Sam Or I]

I am convinced that we are responsible for our current situation on Earth, but that does not rule out other factors which can contribute to global warming.

But I still have not seen a decent counter arguement to the fact that alot of the bodies in the system are warming as well. (Venus is warming as well, but that is nothing new, I do not know if it is getting warmer any more rapid than usual.) The best counter arguement that it is coinsidense, and each planet or moon is warming for thier own reasons, which may be true, but so many at once?

[Sikon]

While it's great that we can all chuckle about our collective brilliance, perhaps maybe for those of us who are less well informed people should offer arguments (or links thereto). I, for one, would actually like to see the counterargument to this, if one exists, rather than vacuous me-tooing spam about how stupid the OP is. You know, like it says in the rules?

There has been no recent overall net increase in solar irradiance by even 0.1%. The following graph shows how the solar constant as monitored by satellites has varied approximately between 1365 W/m^2 and 1368 W/m^2 over the past three decades, but the overall average has not varied by even that several tenths of percent of the total, due to it being primarily a repeating cycle:



In other words, the net change in the average of the cycles above is a rather limited portion of 0.1% of total solar irradiance. The net radiative forcing effect of human emissions in global warming so far is substantially greater, e.g. ~ 1.6 W/m^2 in the graph in the other thread that shows the effect of tiny recent changes in average solar irradiance as ~ 0.12 W/m^2.

There is not good reason to think that the sun has caused a heating effect vastly different from the tiny change in average solar irradiance, let alone to justify some "global warming skeptics" assuming that conveniently makes the rise of human emissions somehow happen to have no significant effect, contrary to the body of data like that of the IPCC.

Jupiter:

Temperatures in some parts of Jupiter have changed by around 10 degrees Fahrenheit, but that's for it getting cooler over some of its atmosphere and warmer elsewhere. Such is basically meaningless in this context with neither a figure for the average net change (in the articles I have seen so far), nor evidence of major change in heating from the sun as opposed to the planet's own complicated weather, nor reason to think the same factors are applicable to earth. Jupiter is a complicated situation anyway. For example, it actually radiates more heat than it receives from the sun due to continuing slow gravitational compression, while having gigantic convection zones, varying weather like storms, and so on.

Mars:

The conventional theory is that climate changes on Mars can be explained primarily by small alterations in the planet's orbit and tilt, not by changes in the sun.

"Wobbles in the orbit of Mars are the main cause of its climate change in the current era," Oxford's Wilson explained. (Related: "Don't Blame Sun for Global Warming, Study Says" [September 13, 2006].)

All planets experience a few wobbles as they make their journey around the sun. Earth's wobbles are known as Milankovitch cycles and occur on time scales of between 20,000 and 100,000 years.

These fluctuations change the tilt of Earth's axis and its distance from the sun and are thought to be responsible for the waxing and waning of ice ages on Earth.

Mars and Earth wobble in different ways, and most scientists think it is pure coincidence that both planets are between ice ages right now.

"Mars has no [large] moon, which makes its wobbles much larger, and hence the swings in climate are greater too," Wilson said.

From here.

Pluto:

Pluto's atmospheric pressure has tripled over the past 14 years, indicating a stark temperature rise, the researchers said. The change is likely a seasonal event, much as seasons on Earth change as the hemispheres alter their inclination to the Sun during the planet's annual orbit.

They suspect the average surface temperature increased about 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit, or slightly less than 2 degrees Celsius.

Pluto remains a mysterious world whose secrets are no so easily explained, however. The warming could be fueled by some sort of eruptive activity on the small planet, one astronomer speculated.

The increasing temperatures are more likely explained by two simple facts: Pluto's highly elliptical orbit significantly changes the planet's distance from the Sun during its long "year," which lasts 248 Earth years; and unlike most of the planets, Pluto's axis is nearly in line with the orbital plane, tipped 122 degrees. Earth's axis is tilted 23.5 degrees.

Though Pluto was closest to the Sun in 1989, a warming trend 13 years later does not surprise David Tholen, a University of Hawaii astronomer involved in the discovery.

"It takes time for materials to warm up and cool off, which is why the hottest part of the day on Earth is usually around 2 or 3 p.m. rather than local noon," Tholen said. "This warming trend on Pluto could easily last for another 13 years."

[...]

Elliot said the Aug. 20 occultation was the first that allowed such a deep probing of the composition, pressure and the always-frigid temperature of Pluto's atmosphere, which ranges from -391 to -274 degrees Fahrenheit (-235 to -170 degrees Celsius).

Volcanoes on Pluto?

Elliot hinted at the possibility of another factor fueling Pluto's warming trend.

He compared Pluto to Triton, a moon of Neptune. Both have atmospheres made mostly of nitrogen. In 1997, Triton occulted a star and astronomers found that its atmosphere had warmed since the last observations were made in 1989 during the Voyager mission. Back then, Voyager found dark material rising above Triton, indicating possible eruptive activity.

"There could be more massive activity on Pluto, since the changes observed in Pluto's atmosphere are much more severe," Elliot said. "The change observed on Triton was subtle. Pluto's changes are not subtle."

There is no firm evidence that Pluto is volcanically active, but neither is there evidence to rule out that possibility. Even the Hubble Space Telescope can barely make out Pluto's surface.

Elliot added that the process affecting Pluto's temperature is complex. "We just don't know what is causing these effects," he said.

From here

I haven't seen reports of net warming on other planets like Mercury, Venus, Uranus, and so on. (Sam or I, doing a quick search for warming on Venus didn't find relevant results; if any net increase is occurring recently, it probably isn't major to not be much reported). The lack of much increase in average solar irradiance as measured by satellites would suggest not major solar cause.

The cosmic ray argument about cloud formation on earth gets complicated, but there is a lack of good supporting evidence for such an explanation of global warming, as discussed in another current thread, while there is evidence for human emissions being the primary factor, including in models, like this illustration:



Changes in sunlight intensity have more of an effect over geological timeframes, with irradiance varying more than the recent slight changes in average solar irradiance, but that's much different than talking about 20th century and 21st century climate.

[Darth Wong]

While it's great that we can all chuckle about our collective brilliance, perhaps maybe for those of us who are less well informed people should offer arguments (or links thereto). I, for one, would actually like to see the counterargument to this, if one exists, rather than vacuous me-tooing spam about how stupid the OP is. You know, like it says in the rules?

The fact that the original article cites a study correlating temperature to cosmic flux over a period of five hundred and fifty million years should be your first clue. The trends it's charting are extremely long-term and can't explain the kind of (relatively) short-term fluctuations we're talking about. This is the same thing as blaming global warming because your basement was uncomfortably hot yesterday morning.

The guy who wrote that blog (and I don't know why we're taking blog articles seriously in the first place) is nothing more than a hack. I know I've pimped this article before, but I consider it a must-read:

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

Anyone who dismisses the science of the CO2 greenhouse gas effect with these objections is an idiot. If you're going to dismiss the greenhouse gas effect, you have to show that it doesn't work. You can't just throw in totally irrelevant nonsense in an attempt to cast doubt.