# Why is Mars undergoing global warming? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 31, 2006, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-undergoing-global-warming/350778 "2006-03-31T23:35:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-undergoing-global-warming/350778/41 "2006-04-02T05:57:41Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > BTW, you should be aware that NOAA is currently laboring under the same cloud of politically spawned censorship that NASA has been dealing with: [Censorship Is Alleged at NOAA](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/10/AR2006021001766.html) Oh, not anymore. [“Scientific and technical information from or about (space) agency programs and projects will be accurate and unfiltered,” the new policy stated,](http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/03/31/nasa.media.policy.reut/index.html) which, of course, begs the question of what the information being delivered before was if not “accurate and unfiltered.” (Great, now they’ve opened the door to all the moon shot conspiracy theorists. :rolleyes: ) As for global warming, it is essentially incontrovertible (as **Colibri** has manifestly demonstrated) that the global average temperature is increasing. How much of this is due primarily to human intervention isn’t entirely clear, although the evidence weighs heavily on industrial society at a substantial culprit via the increase in greenhouse gases. The models of climate behavior are far from complete–predictions of temperatures in the troposphere and stratosphere are significantly off actual measurements–and are insufficient to make an absolute prognosis of future conditions, but the melting of glaciered water, rise of ocean levels, disruption of currents and airstreams, and resulting impact upon regional biospheres is inevitable. This is nothing new, of course, and has been endured by the Earth and its inhabitants many times in the past as part of the natural evolution of the planet, but it may have serious and detrimental impacts on our ability to maintain the underpinnings of civilization (or, at least what passes for it in Lower Manhattan) and of course result in the perhaps premature extinction of many species, causing bright-eyed and idealistic young turks (and a few of us older folk) to bemoan the loss if irreplacible-in-our-lifetime coral reefs and rain forests. On the other hand, little treatment is paid to the potential benefits of global warming, including the opening of many areas to more effective agriculture, which could potentially offset the costs of damage and loss due to global warming (though not replace lost species or mitigate the spread of disease). The natural assumption that “change is bad” is itself an inherently, if understandibly, conservative position. It’s entirely possible that future generations may regard the warming trend and climate change–aside from some aggrevating storm activity–to be a net positive for humanity. Certainly we’d be hearing much less from New Yorkers about how important and central their city is. 😛 The technical issue of the effectiveness of agreements like the Kyoto Protocol is up for debate–there are many reputable scientists who argue that it is either ineffectively weak, counterproductive in the economic restrictions it would impose, or somesuch–but the fact of global warming and some kind of accompanying climate change is not. To argue differently based upon merely a political bent harkens back to the good old days of [Lysenkoism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism). Dosvedanya, gospodin. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Soylent\_Gene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@Soylent\_Gene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soylent_Gene)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-undergoing-global-warming/350778/42 "2006-04-02T09:18:12Z")
> [@Flash Dancer](#): > > Let’s see, for the genius here … > > \*\*“Greenhouse gases … water vapor is present in the atmosphere in concentrations of 3-4% whereas carbon dioxide is at 387 ppm or 0.0386%.” \*\* > > Hmmm … so water vapor is a 100 times more prevalent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas in the atmosphere … oh my! > > We better do something about water evaporating into the atmosphere fast eh? :smack: Flash, just a guess here…but do you listen to Rush Limbaugh? ---
**Author:** ![First\_Amongst\_Daves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/4491bb/32.png) [@First\_Amongst\_Daves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/First_Amongst_Daves)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-undergoing-global-warming/350778/43 "2006-04-02T11:37:17Z")
Can we have this bumped to GD? ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-undergoing-global-warming/350778/44 "2006-04-02T13:52:09Z")
Moving this to Great Debates. I think this may allow all participants to air it out a bit better. As my contribution, I’m going to the library today to read the _Fortune_ article in the original. I _think_ I’m gonna find that the 2.7 degree drop in temperature from the 40’s to the early 1970’s occured in Iceland, not global. I’ll report back sometime this afternoon. **samclem** ---
**Author:** ![Flash\_Dancer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@Flash\_Dancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flash_Dancer)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-undergoing-global-warming/350778/45 "2006-04-02T15:01:54Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > It’s not too surprising that you seem to regard the word “genius” as some kind of insult. 😃 Well, you read everything and said you could answer these questions regarding global warming / cooling. Anyhow, continuing along a sceintific path here, please explain the dramatic temperature cooling in the period starting about 1580 AD. Maybe you could also explain some of the warming periods prior to that as well … Moberg / NOAA … [http://www.junkscience.com/MSU\_Temps/Moberg2005.gif](http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Moberg2005.gif) ---
**Author:** ![Flash\_Dancer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@Flash\_Dancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flash_Dancer)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-undergoing-global-warming/350778/46 "2006-04-02T15:25:39Z")
> [@Soylent Gene](#): > > Flash, just a guess here…but do you listen to Rush Limbaugh? I listen to everyone, but my job is to assess data based on probability / statistical methods, including publishing peer reviewed articles on these techniques. ---
**Author:** ![Flash\_Dancer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@Flash\_Dancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flash_Dancer)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-undergoing-global-warming/350778/47 "2006-04-02T15:37:36Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > US scientists are of course in the forefront of Global Climate Change research, and their overwhelming consensus is that global warming is occurring. Hmmm … how could these leading US scientists have been so wrong in the 70s? :smack: > [@](#): > > Dr. Reid Bryson, director of environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin. Bryson theorized that agricultural and industrial activities were causing an increase of dust and other particles in the atmosphere, and that these particles were increasingly preventing sunlight from reaching the earth, thereby fueling a cooling trend that, sometime after 1930, began overpowering the greenhouse effect of CO2. Fortune quoted Bryson as saying that this trend, “if it continues, will affect the whole human occupation of the earth – like a billion people starving. The effects are already showing up in rather drastic ways.” > > Was this the uninformed gibberish of a pseudo-scientist? Not according to Fortune, which quoted another eminent scientist as noting that Bryson “is the most important figure in climatology today.” Besides, “most climatologists agree that a diminution of the sunlight as small as 1 percent would suffice to initiate a cool period and perhaps even major glaciation.” But now, the same industrialization these “experts” were blaming for part of the cooling is being blamed for part of the warming. > > Another '70s proponent of the global cooling theory was Dr. Stephen Schneider, who spent two decades at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado before joining the faculty at Stanford University in 1992. In an article he co-authored for the July 9, 1971 issue of Science magazine, Schneider warned that “an increase by a factor of 4 in the equilibrium dust concentration in the global atmosphere, which cannot be ruled out as a possibility within the next century, could decrease the mean surface temperature by as much as 3.5? K [6.3? F]. If sustained over a period of several years, such a temperature decrease could be sufficient to trigger an ice age!” On the other hand, the warming effect of CO2 was much less significant, since, “as more CO2 is added to the atmosphere, the rate of temperature increase is proportionally less and less, and the increase eventually levels off.” “\*f CO2 is augmented by another 10 percent in the next 30 years, the increase in the global temperature may be as small as 0.1? K [0.18? F],” Schneider calculated, and doubling CO2 would change global temperature by 0.8? K (1.4? F). Consequently, “the net result” between the sunlight-blocking dust and greenhouse CO2 “will be a cooling of Earth.” ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-undergoing-global-warming/350778/48 "2006-04-02T15:40:37Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Actually, I served on the US National Committee on Global Change Research in 1991-1992. Burn! As to the OP, specifically - all you have is change in icecap size. Is there an actual temperature change you can cite as well? > [@Flash Dancer](#): > > Well, you read everything and said you could answer these questions regarding global warming / cooling. Anyhow, continuing along a sceintific path here, please explain the dramatic temperature cooling in the period starting about 1580 AD. Maybe you could also explain some of the warming periods prior to that as well … Moberg / NOAA … You do realise the current & predicted warming is way off the scale of that graph, which is between 0.1 and 0.2 degrees? ---
**Author:** ![Flash\_Dancer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@Flash\_Dancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flash_Dancer)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-undergoing-global-warming/350778/49 "2006-04-02T15:54:11Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > Moving this to Great Debates. I think this may allow all participants to air it out a bit better. > > As my contribution, I’m going to the library today to read the _Esquire_ article in the original. I _think_ I’m gonna find that the 2.7 degree drop in temperature from the 40’s to the early 1970’s occured in Iceland, not global. > > I’ll report back sometime this afternoon. > > **samclem** This issue should not be a debate. There are extensive amounts of data indicating the variablility of global temperature. This data can be analyzed using various statistical / probability methodologies to assess the degree of significance. The principle question is, in fact, not a debate, but are the current global temperature trends significant at a reasonable level of confidence? ---
**Author:** ![Flash\_Dancer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@Flash\_Dancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flash_Dancer)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-undergoing-global-warming/350778/50 "2006-04-02T15:57:42Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Burn! > > As to the OP, specifically - all you have is change in icecap size. Is there an actual temperature change you can cite as well? > > You do realise the current & predicted warming is way off the scale of that graph, which is between 0.1 and 0.2 degrees? Huh? Please explain. ---
**Author:** ![Flash\_Dancer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@Flash\_Dancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flash_Dancer)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-undergoing-global-warming/350778/51 "2006-04-02T16:21:49Z")
> [@Q.E.D.](#): > > BTW, you missed a decimal place: 387 ppm is .00387%. I see you are good at math too eh? 387 / 1,000,000 = 0.000387 x 100 = 0.0387% … :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-undergoing-global-warming/350778/52 "2006-04-02T16:56:07Z")
> [@Flash Dancer](#): > > Well, you read everything and said you could answer these questions regarding global warming / cooling. Oh, so you were actually acknowledging that I am a genius? That’s nice. Thank you. > [@Flash Dancer](#): > > Anyhow, continuing along a sceintific path here, please explain the dramatic temperature cooling in the period starting about 1580 AD. Maybe you could also explain some of the warming periods prior to that as well … Moberg / NOAA … [Little Ice Age](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age) > [@](#): > > The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of cooling lasting approximately from the 14th to the mid-19th centuries, although there is no generally agreed start or end date: some confine the period to 1550-1850. This cooler period occurs after a warmer era known as the Medieval climate optimum. There were three minima, beginning about 1650, about 1770, and 1850, each separated by slight warming intervals [1]. > > It was initially believed that the LIA was a global phenomenon; it is now less clear that this is true. See Medieval climate optimum for more on this. > > The IPCC, based on Bradley and Jones, 1993; Hughes and Diaz, 1994; Crowley and Lowery, 2000 describes the LIA as a modest cooling of the Northern Hemisphere during this period of less than 1°C, and says current evidence does not support globally synchronous periods of anomalous cold or warmth over this timeframe, and the conventional terms of “Little Ice Age” and “Medieval Warm Period” appear to have limited utility in describing trends in hemispheric or global mean temperature changes in past centuries. > > . . . > > Causes > > Scientists have identified two causes of the Little Ice Age from outside the ocean/atmosphere/land systems: decreased solar activity and increased volcanic activity. Research is ongoing on more ambiguous influences such as internal variability of the climate system, and anthropogenic influence (Ruddiman). Ruddiman has speculated that depopulation of Europe during the Black Death, with the resulting decrease in agricultural output and reforestation taking up more carbon from the atmosphere, may have prolonged the Little Ice Age [18]. > > . . . > > Solar activity > > During the period 1645–1715, right in the middle of the Little Ice Age, solar activity as seen in sunspots was extremely low, with some years having no sunspots at all. This period of low sunspot activity is known as the Maunder Minimum. The precise link between low sunspot activity and cooling temperatures has not been established, but the coincidence of the Maunder Minimum with the deepest trough of the Little Ice Age is suggestive of such a connection [19]. The Sporer Minimum has also been identified with a significant cooling period during the Little Ice Age. Other indicators of low solar activity during this period are levels of carbon-14 and beryllium-10 [20]. The low solar activity is also well documented in astronomical records. Astronomers in both Europe and Asia documented a decrease in the number of visible solar spots during this time period. > Volcanic activity > > Throughout the Little Ice Age, the world also experienced heightened volcanic activity. When a volcano erupts, its ash reaches high into the atmosphere and can spread to cover the whole earth. This ash cloud blocks out some of the incoming solar radiation, leading to worldwide cooling that can last up to two years after an eruption. Also emitted by eruptions is sulfur in the form of SO2 gas. When this gas reaches the stratosphere, it turns into sulfuric acid particles, which reflect the sun’s rays, further reducing the amount of radiation reaching the earth’s surface. The 1815 eruption of Tambora in Indonesia blanketed the atmosphere with ash; the following year, 1816, came to be known as the Year Without A Summer, when frost and snow were reported in June and July in both New England and Northern Europe. The consensus opinion of climate scientists today, as expressed in the [Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate](http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/reports.htm) (the IPCC as cited above), is that neither the so-called Little Ice Age nor the Medieval climate optimum were comparable in magnitude nor scope to the climatic changes taking place now. In contrast to these events also, the present warming shows very clear links to increases in global levels of CO2, rather than to changes in sunspot activity or volcanism. > [@Flash Dancer](#): > > Hmmm … how could these leading US scientists have been so wrong in the 70s? This displays almost complete misunderstanding of how science works. You quote two scientists who advanced a particular hypothesis 30 years ago. Their predictions have not been borne out by the collection of additional data and by improved climate models. Do you seriously believe that every single scientific paper is 100% correct in its predictions? If so, why do you think that hundreds of leading US scientists are so wrong today? > [@](#): > > Dr. Reid Bryson, director of environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin. Bryson theorized that agricultural and industrial activities were causing an increase of dust and other particles in the atmosphere, and that these particles were increasingly preventing sunlight from reaching the earth, thereby fueling a cooling trend that, sometime after 1930, began overpowering the greenhouse effect of CO2. Bryson was actually seems to have been correct about the mechanism. However, he was wrong about the long-term trend because of inadequate data. Aerosols apparently were responsible for the slowing of the warming trend in the late 1940s, but their effect has since been overcome by increases in C02. Schneider was correct about the mechanisms too, but wrong in his calculations about their relative impact. In contrast to the work of these two individual scientists, present scientific opinion on global warming - that it is unequivacally occurring, and is due at least in part to human impacts - represents the consensus of thousands of climate scientists throughout the world. From the same article I linked to earlier on “Global Cooling”: > [@](#): > > The present level of knowledge > > Thirty years later, the concern that the cooler temperatures would continue, and perhaps at a faster rate, can now be observed to have been wrong. More has to be learned about climate, but the growing records have shown the cooling concerns of 1975 to have been simplistic and not borne out. > > . . . > > Climate science has improved > > As the NAS report and the article in Newsweek both indicate, the scientific knowledge regarding climate change was more uncertain then than it is today. At the time that Rasool and Schneider wrote their 1971 paper, climatologists had not yet recognized the significance of greenhouse gases other than water vapor and carbon dioxide, such as methane, nitrous oxide and chloroflourocarbons [13]. Early in that decade, carbon dioxide was the only widely studied human-influenced greenhouse gas. The attention drawn to atmospheric gases in the 1970s stimulated many discoveries in future decades. As the temperature pattern changed, by 1979 global cooling was of waning interest (WCC). > [@Flash Dancer](#): > > my job is to assess data based on probability / statistical methods, including publishing peer reviewed articles on these techniques. This is rather scary. Why do you show no apparent ability to assess data here? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-undergoing-global-warming/350778/53 "2006-04-02T17:00:11Z")
> [@Flash Dancer](#): > > This issue should not be a debate. There are extensive amounts of data indicating the variablility of global temperature. This data can be analyzed using various statistical / probability methodologies to assess the degree of significance. The principle question is, in fact, not a debate, but are the current global temperature trends significant at a reasonable level of confidence? You are correct. It’s not a debate. They are. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-undergoing-global-warming/350778/54 "2006-04-02T17:02:22Z")
I don’t have anything substantive to add, but I want to give props to **Colibri** for his efforts. I doubt if anything, anything at all, will convince the OP, but I’m finding this thread and the links pretty useful. I don’t think I’m the only one. ---
**Author:** ![Crowbar\_of\_Irony\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f08c70/32.png) [@Crowbar\_of\_Irony\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crowbar_of_Irony_3)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-undergoing-global-warming/350778/55 "2006-04-02T17:09:47Z")
> [@Flash Dancer](#): > > Well, I can’t argue with someone who thinks an UN report, based on scientists from Africa, Korea, etc. are better than our own scientists … they commit fraud on SCR and can’t even feed their own people … believe what you want, but it is very apparent you are hardly learned on this subject … let me start you on a scientific path … NOAA … > > [http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/carbdiox.html](http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/carbdiox.html) Wooah. Now that’s a **global generalisation**. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-undergoing-global-warming/350778/56 "2006-04-02T17:20:48Z")
> [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > On the other hand, little treatment is paid to the potential benefits of global warming, including the opening of many areas to more effective agriculture, which could potentially offset the costs of damage and loss due to global warming (though not replace lost species or mitigate the spread of disease). The natural assumption that “change is bad” is itself an inherently, if understandibly, conservative position. It’s entirely possible that future generations may regard the warming trend and climate change–aside from some aggrevating storm activity–to be a net positive for humanity. Possibly, but warming is not the sole effect. Climate changes may include decreases or increases in rainfall that could make substantial areas _less_ suitable for agriculture or habititation. (In some areas increased temperatures today are resulting in higher evaporation and hence less available water for irrigation.) Whatever the case, even if the changes are positive in the long-term, they are bound to cause substatial economic losses and social disruption in the short term. I recall the 1963 science fiction story by Alan Danzig, _The Great Nebraska Sea_. In it the entire Great Plains area of the United States founders in an enormous earthquake in 1973, creating a great inland sea. The epilogue, written from the perspective of 100 years in the future, describes what a positive development this seeming disaster has been. Of course, at the time it wasn’t much fun for Oklahomans. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-undergoing-global-warming/350778/57 "2006-04-02T17:23:19Z")
> [@Larry Borgia](#): > > I don’t have anything substantive to add, but I want to give props to **Colibri** for his efforts. I doubt if anything, anything at all, will convince the OP, but I’m finding this thread and the links pretty useful. I don’t think I’m the only one. Thank you. It is a little like shooting fish in a barrel, though. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Flash\_Dancer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@Flash\_Dancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flash_Dancer)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-undergoing-global-warming/350778/58 "2006-04-02T17:50:41Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Thank you. It is a little like shooting fish in a barrel, though. 🙂 Yea, I find it fun … what is 387 ppm again in %? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Flash\_Dancer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@Flash\_Dancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flash_Dancer)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-undergoing-global-warming/350778/59 "2006-04-02T17:54:50Z")
> [@ExtraKun](#): > > Wooah. Now that’s a **global generalisation**. No variation (variance) there huh? :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Flash\_Dancer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@Flash\_Dancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flash_Dancer)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-undergoing-global-warming/350778/60 "2006-04-02T18:00:41Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > You are correct. It’s not a debate. They are. “They are.”? I have no clue what you just said, but if you have a computation of the recent global warming sttistical significance based on historical variations, at let’s say a 95% confidence level … please provide. _watching_ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-undergoing-global-warming/350778.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-mars-undergoing-global-warming/350778.md?page=4)