Mars heats up!

Mars needs air conditioning!

Well, not yet, but scientists are reporting (as are a good number of Pajamahadeen) that the fourth planet's polar caps are melting more than they should be.

The Speculist is speculating (naturally) that since Mars is experiencing global warming and Earth is experiencing global warming ... hmmm:

if two planets so close to each other are both experiencing a rise in surface temperature, isn't it just possible that it might have to do with that nearby star they both orbit? I'm just asking is all. I mean, what if...

What if.

And I'm just asking. But what if global warming is real, but it isn't our fault and there is nothing we can do about it?

Others are wondering if Mars' failure to sign the Kyoto Protocol is coming back to haunt the Red Planet. Does the dry-ice melt mean that we'd better not send a manned mission to "rove about" heating up the joint?

Or is Halliburton to blame?

Seriously, folks, if the answer to global warming on both planets is a hotter sun, shouldn't the nations of the world rethink the entire Kyoto issue? A century from now history may not judge us kindly. Not that it will matter much to us.

Of course, the Kyoto enthusiasts continue to insist that humans are responsible for global warming, or at least most of it. The NewScientist.com folks recently featured an article latching on to a White House report that assigns the blame to humanity. But this was before new reports surfaced that point the finger at Mr. Sun. In the UK Telegraph:

Global warming has finally been explained: the Earth is getting hotter because the Sun is burning more brightly than at any time during the past 1,000 years, according to new research.

A study by Swiss and German scientists suggests that increasing radiation from the sun is responsible for recent global climate changes.

Dr Sami Solanki, the director of the renowned Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany, who led the research, said: "The Sun has been at its strongest over the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures.

"The Sun is in a changed state. It is brighter than it was a few hundred years ago and this brightening started relatively recently - in the last 100 to 150 years."

Dr Solanki said that the brighter Sun and higher levels of "greenhouse gases", such as carbon dioxide, both contributed to the change in the Earth's temperature but it was impossible to say which had the greater impact.

A Columbia University researcher believes the solar warmup has been underway for over a century:

In what could be the simplest explanation for one component of global warming, a new study shows the Sun's radiation has increased by .05 percent per decade since the late 1970s. The increase would only be significant to Earth's climate if it has been going on for a century or more, said study leader Richard Willson, a Columbia University researcher also affiliated with NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

The Sun's increasing output has only been monitored with precision since satellite technology allowed necessary observations. Willson is not sure if the trend extends further back in time, but other studies suggest it does.

"This trend is important because, if sustained over many decades, it could cause significant climate change," Willson said.

In a NASA-funded study recently published in Geophysical Research Letters, Willson and his colleagues speculate on the possible history of the trend based on data collected in the pre-satellite era. "Solar activity has apparently been going upward for a century or more," Willson told SPACE.com today

Finally, this report piles on more fusion fuel:

by John Carlisle

Those looking for the culprit responsible for global warming have missed the obvious choice - the sun. While it may come as a newsflash to some, scientific evidence conclusively shows that the sun plays a far more important role in causing global warming and global cooling than any other factor, natural or man-made.

(***)

So important is the sun in climate change that half of the 1.5° F temperature increase since 1850 is directly attributable to changes in the sun.According to NASA scientists David Lind and Judith Lean, only one-quarter of a degree can be ascribed to other causes, such as greenhouse gases, through which human activities can theoretically exert some influence.

Here at Oklahomily we believe in your Ben Franklin-style science (practical and sometimes risky), but after a bad bout with heatstroke and blurred vision we'll leave the sun-gazing to the experts. Still, it seems like there are enough contradictory voices emerging to challenge man-made global warming theory, and perhaps to challenge us to find a solution to what's really happening.