# Why is Mars heating up? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 4, 2007, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-heating-up/398778 "2007-04-04T21:26:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-heating-up/398778/21 "2007-04-05T19:30:21Z")
[QUOTE=Musicat] [This source](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17952631/?GT1=9246) suggests that Mars’ temp increases might be better linked to dust storms than solar fluctuations. Volcanic activity might be a cause on other planets or moons. [/quote] Indeed. > [@](#): > > The more planets/moons we find with temp increases, even for a short time, the more we can discount human influence on our own world. Why discount it? It’s a perfectly reasonable hypothesis that was made almost 100 years ago, and matches what we know about how sunlight and carbon dioxide interact in the atmosphere. You would have prove why human released CO[sub]2[/sub] isn’t causing global warming–from everything we know, it should–aside from figuring out what was really causing it. But like I said, certainly, the more data you have, the better a position you are in to figure out the causes of things. But at the moment, it’s unfeasible to get the data of other planets, and what data we do have is about as ironclad as a scientist is ever willing to say is ironclad. ---
**Author:** ![Duke\_of\_Rat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Duke\_of\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-heating-up/398778/22 "2007-04-05T21:01:31Z")
So nobody thinks it just a wee bit suspicious that the temperature on Mars has been increasing since humans sent probes there? Obviously the temperature increase is a result of man’s influence. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-heating-up/398778/23 "2007-04-05T22:07:59Z")
[QUOTE=Sage Rat] It comes from [realclimate.org](http://realclimate.org), and it plots the number of solar flares (essentially the “hotness”) of the sun on the vertical axis, and the year on the horizontal. Next question, congressman? [/QUOTE] Am I being whooshed here? 😕 Yes, I know which site web site the GIF file is hosted on. But that doesn’t tell me how the data was obtained and reduced, and by whom. And its vertical axis has multiple labels, one of which is sunspot number, which is not a measurement of solar output. You’re now saying one of the others represents solar flares, but energy released in solar flares is only a tiny fraction of the sun’s energy output. Solar flare frequency is not a meaningful measure of solar luminosity either. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-heating-up/398778/24 "2007-04-05T22:23:11Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > Yes, I know which site web site the GIF file is hosted on. But that doesn’t tell me how the data was obtained and reduced, and by whom. It wasn’t all that obvious, but the filename in the URL is the tipoff: the graph comes from a [2005 article on realclimate.org by Raimund Muscheler](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=180). In that article he links to the published research that explains where the data comes from. ---
**Author:** ![AWB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-heating-up/398778/25 "2007-04-05T22:24:08Z")
[QUOTE=xtisme] Was reading [this](http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20070404/sc_space/duststormsfuelglobalwarmingonmars) article today and my question is…why is Mars heating up at this time? Why would dust storms be increasing? And what effect might this have? If it continues on Mars, could water again (assuming it ever did) be seen on the surface? Or is there just too little atmosphere to ever allow that again? -XT [/QUOTE] Even pollution on Earth is causing global warming on Mars. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-heating-up/398778/26 "2007-04-05T22:27:31Z")
[QUOTE=scr4] Am I being whooshed here? 😕 Yes, I know which site web site the GIF file is hosted on. But that doesn’t tell me how the data was obtained and reduced, and by whom. And its vertical axis has multiple labels, one of which is sunspot number, which is not a measurement of solar output. You’re now saying one of the others represents solar flares, but energy released in solar flares is only a tiny fraction of the sun’s energy output. Solar flare frequency is not a meaningful measure of solar luminosity either. [/QUOTE] The gif is a figure from [this](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/08/did-the-sun-hit-record-highs-over-the-last-few-decades/#more-180) article; here’s the caption: > [@Raimund Muscheler](#): > > Figure 1: Reconstructions of the (11-year smoothed) solar magnetic modulation based on 14C data from tree rings combined with instrumental measurements (Muscheler et al.,2005). The purple curve shows the results according to a normalization using balloon-borne measurements. The black and green curves show results using an alternative normalization and the northern hemisphere (black) and globally averaged (green) 14C data. The red curve is the group sunspot number. ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-heating-up/398778/27 "2007-04-05T22:45:52Z")
It’s a sort of Midas touch. No matter where we send stuff, it heats up. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the trail of Voyager 1 and 2, bright and clear in infrared. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-heating-up/398778/28 "2007-04-05T23:01:20Z")
Yes there are many possibilities other than greenhouse gasses that could account for global warming. The prudent policy is to assume that anthropogenic global warming is negligible and continue burning fossil fuels indiscriminately. Those [600 authors and 620 reviewers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC_Fourth_Assessment_Report) are all in the backpockets of the lucrative environmentalist lobby (ie comminist holdouts that want to doom capitalism by depriving it of its sole energy source.) ---
**Author:** ![Duke\_of\_Rat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Duke\_of\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-heating-up/398778/29 "2007-04-05T23:49:49Z")
[QUOTE=Christopher] Yes there are many possibilities other than greenhouse gasses that could account for global warming. The prudent policy is to assume that anthropogenic global warming is negligible and continue burning fossil fuels indiscriminately. Those [600 authors and 620 reviewers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC_Fourth_Assessment_Report) are all in the backpockets of the lucrative environmentalist lobby (ie comminist holdouts that want to doom capitalism by depriving it of its sole energy source.) [/QUOTE] Even on Mars? ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2007, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-heating-up/398778/30 "2007-04-06T02:44:54Z")
If your refering to the OP, I think the answer is that based on the minimal data we have, we don’t even know if Mars is warming or not. The minimal data we have suggests that there is at least a temporary warming trend but beyond a few years there is nothing to report. Most of what is being debated in this thread; however, has little to do with what is going on on Mars. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2007, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-heating-up/398778/31 "2007-04-06T07:23:01Z")
[QUOTE=scr4] Solar flare frequency is not a meaningful measure of solar luminosity either. [/QUOTE] Here’s the article which it came with: > **[RealClimate: Did the Sun hit record highs over the last few decades?](https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/08/did-the-sun-hit-record-highs-over-the-last-few-decades/)** > > RealClimate: Guest commentary by Raimund Muscheler \[note: this is a restore (8/8/05) of an article from August 3, 2005 that was accidentally deleted due to a technical glitch. Unfortunately, most of the comments could not be retrieved. We sincerely... It says it’s a graph of solar irradiance, and that solar irradiance is what people are talking about when they talk about global warming as being sun-cycle based. The graph itself labels the y axis as being of solar flares. I honestly don’t know if solar irradiance = solar flares = what we are talking about in regards to solar cycles. I assume that they are functionally equivalent, though. If not then I am fully willing to research the issue further. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2007, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-heating-up/398778/32 "2007-04-06T07:25:05Z")
Substitute sunspot for solar flare, in my comments please. :smack: Shows me for going by memory. ---
**Author:** ![Snickers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Snickers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snickers)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2007, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-heating-up/398778/33 "2007-04-06T19:32:23Z")
I am not a physicist. I can’t even count myself an amateur astronomer. I am wildly intrigued by astronomy, however, and read and study what I can when I can. In the astronomy class I took at the University of Wisconsin lo these many years ago, the professor told us that the sun was still shrinking and condensing, and would burn hotter and hotter as it did so. Is this perhaps why the sun is warming? If it is, why isn’t it given more attention? Is it simply because it’s way too gradual? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2007, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-heating-up/398778/34 "2007-04-06T19:55:23Z")
> [@](#): > > If it is, why isn’t it given more attention? Is it simply because it’s way too gradual? It’s way too gradual. That occurs on timescales of billions of years, or so. The global warming that everyone’s so concerned about is on timescales of tens or hundreds of years. ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2007, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-heating-up/398778/35 "2007-04-06T21:33:46Z")
1. If Pluto is subject to its own global warming as a result of something the sun is doing, I’d say you have a real scoop, there. From Pluto, the sun is virtually indistinguishable from all the other stars. 2. Even if the earth’s warming is grosser or faster than any curves we’ve seen in the past, we won’t know if it’s a long-term trend or just a fluctuation for many years. Not that I’d like to sit around and speculate about it (as if we have much other choice) but I think it would be quite interesting to discover that in 30 years, the rate has slowed down to next to nothing. There may be more to the nature of the earth or the solar system than we know now. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-heating-up/398778.md?page=1)