January 24, 2007

Global Warming - but which globe?

It's not just happening here folks, it's all over. I'm talking about Global Warming. Mars is coming out of an ice age:
Mars Emerging from Ice Age, Data Suggest
Scientists have suspected in recent years that Mars might be undergoing some sort of global warming. New data points to the possibility it is emerging from an ice age.

NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter has been surveying the planet for nearly a full Martian year now, and it has spotted seasonal changes like the advance and retreat of polar ice. It's also gathering data of a possible longer trend.

There appears to be too much frozen water at low-latitude regions -- away from the frigid poles -- given the current climate of Mars. The situation is not in equilibrium, said William Feldman of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

"One explanation could be that Mars is just coming out of an ice age," Feldman said. "In some low-latitude areas, the ice has already dissipated. In others, that process is slower and hasn't reached an equilibrium yet. Those areas are like the patches of snow you sometimes see persisting in protected spots long after the last snowfall of the winter."
Pluto seems to be warming up a bit:
Global Warming on Pluto Puzzles Scientists
In what is largely a reversal of an August announcement, astronomers today said Pluto is undergoing global warming in its thin atmosphere even as it moves farther from the Sun on its long, odd-shaped orbit.

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.
And the storms on Jupiter are getting more violent:
New Storm on Jupiter Hints at Climate Change
A storm is brewing half a billion miles away and in a rare event, astronomers get to watch it closely.

Jupiter is growing a new red spot and the Hubble Space Telescope is photographing the scene. Backyard astronomers have been following the action, too.

"Red Spot Jr." as it is being called, formed after three white oval-shaped storms—two of which were at least 90 years old—merged between 1998 and 2000.

A similar merger took place centuries ago and formed the bigger and legendary Great Red Spot, a storm twice as big as Earth and almost 300 years old.
And the meat of the issue:
The latest images could provide evidence that Jupiter is in the midst of a global change that can modify temperatures by as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit on different parts of the globe.

The study was led jointly by Imke de Pater and Philip Marcus of University of California, Berkeley.

"The storm is growing in altitude," de Pater said. "Before when they were just ovals they didn't stick out above the clouds. Now they are rising."

This growth signals a temperature increase in that region, she said.
It's all those probes dammit! The Sun being a variable star has nothing to do with it, it's the damn alien probes getting through my Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie(TM). Posted by DaveH at January 24, 2007 8:20 PM | TrackBack
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