NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC: GLOBAL WARMING - ON MARS AND EARTH - IS NATURAL, NOT MAN-MADE

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC: News Front Page > Environment

Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says

Kate Ravilious for National Geographic News - February 28, 2007

Simultaneous warming on Earth and Mars suggests that our planet's recent climate changes have a natural—and not a human-induced—cause, according to one scientist's controversial theory.

Earth is currently experiencing rapid warming, which the vast majority of climate scientists says is due to humans pumping huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Mars, too, appears to be enjoying more mild and balmy temperatures.

In 2005 data from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions revealed that the carbon dioxide "ice caps" near Mars's south pole had been diminishing for three summers in a row.

Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of the St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun.

"The long-term increase in solar irradiance is heating both Earth and Mars," he said. [UMPH ADDED.]

NOW WILL ALL THE ECO-NUTSIES PLEASE STFU. WE DON'T HAVE TO RAISE TAXES OR BUY CARBON CREDITS OR DRIVE SMALL CARS. WE JUST HAVE TO GET THE LEFT-WING ECO-NUTSIES TO STFU. (Hat tip NEWSBUSTERS. Complete round up at MEMEORANDUM.)