From National Geographic News:

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.

Abdussamatov believes that changes in the sun's heat output can account for almost all the climate changes we see on both planets.

Mars and Earth, for instance, have experienced periodic ice ages throughout their histories.

"Man-made greenhouse warming has made a small contribution to the warming seen on Earth in recent years, but it cannot compete with the increase in solar irradiance," Abdussamatov said.

By studying fluctuations in the warmth of the sun, Abdussamatov believes he can see a pattern that fits with the ups and downs in climate we see on Earth and Mars.

CO₂ constitutes a small percentage of atmospheric air - less than half of a percent. Which do you think is more probable - that a minor increase of a minor atmospheric gas would cause global warming, or that increased solar activity would cause global warming? Given that climate change is a reality, and has been a reality for all of earth's history, which do you think is more likely to have been a factor in climate change in the past, and is more likely to be a factor in climate change right now?

And if it's probable that solar activity is the primary cause of global warming, why would we not want to comprehensively study that before making sweeping government-mandated changes that would adversely affect billions of people?

Labels: politics