Global Warming on Triton

28 Jun 1998
 http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/19980526052143data_trunc_sys.shtml
 

 

Picture courtesy of NASA/JPL
 

 

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and several ground-based instruments show that temperatures on Neptune's largest moon have increased dramatically since the Voyager space probe in 1989. So much so, in fact, that Triton's surface of frozen nitrogen is turning into gas, making its thin atmosphere denser by the day.

"At least since 1989, Triton has been undergoing a period of global warming," says astronomer James Elliot, professor of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Percentage-wise, it's a very large increase."

Elliot and colleagues from the Lowell Observatory and Williams College reported their findings in the June 25 issue of Nature. Triton's 5 percent increase in temperature from about -392 to -389 degrees F would be like the Earth experiencing a jump of some 22 degrees F in just nine years.

 

 

 

 

Global Warming on Jupiter
 http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060504_red_jr.html

04 May 06 - Jupiter is growing a new red spot and the Hubble Space Telescope is photographing the scene.

"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.

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 by as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit in that region, she said.

 

 

 

 

Warming on Mars Suggests Solar, Not Human, Cause, Scientist Says
Further, we’re headed for a "steep cooling" in 15-20 years
 http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html
28 Feb 07

Simultaneous warming on Earth and Mars suggests that our planet's recent climate changes have a natural —not human- induced— cause, says Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of the St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia.

Earth is currently experiencing rapid warming, which the vast majority of climate scientists says is due to humans pumping huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

 

Mars, too, appears to be enjoying more mild and balmy temperatures.

 

 

 

 

This Mars warming, says Abdussamatov,

"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.

 

All planets experience a few wobbles as they make their journey around the sun. Earth's wobbles are known as Milankovitch cycles and occur on time scales of between 20,000 and 100,000 years.

These fluctuations change the tilt of Earth's axis and its distance from the sun and are thought to be responsible for the waxing and waning of ice ages on Earth. (The Milankovitch cycle is called the "Pacemaker of the Ice Ages.")

Abdussamatov also dismisses the greenhouse effect, in which atmospheric gases such as carbon dioxide help keep heat trapped near the planet's surface. He claims that carbon dioxide has only a small influence on Earth's climate and virtually no influence on Mars.

Abdussamatov suggests that the sun holds something quite different in store.

"The solar irradiance began to drop in the 1990s, and a minimum will be reached by approximately 2040," Abdussamatov said. "It will cause a steep cooling of the climate on Earth in 15 to 20 years."

"Abdussamatov's work has not been well received by other climate scientists."

 

 

 

Global Warming on Pluto
by Robert Roy Britt
 http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/pluto_warming_021009.html
9 Oct 2002

 

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.

Pluto remains a mysterious world whose secrets are no so easily explained, however. The warming could be fueled by some sort of eruptive activity on the small planet, one astronomer speculated.

Though Pluto was closest to the Sun in 1989, a warming trend 13 years later does not surprise David Tholen, a University of Hawaii astronomer involved in the discovery.

"It takes time for materials to warm up and cool off, which is why the hottest part of the day on Earth is usually around 2 or 3 p.m. rather than local noon," Tholen said. "This warming trend on Pluto could easily last for another 13 years."


 

 

Venus inferno due to 'runaway greenhouse effect'
28 Nov 2007

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Venus_inferno_due_to_runaway_greenhouse_effect_say_scientists_999.html 

 

Once styled as Earth's twin, Venus was transformed from a haven for water to a fiery hell by an unstoppable greenhouse effect, according to an investigation by the first space probe to visit our closest neighbor in more than a decade.


Like peas in a cosmic pod, the second and third rocks from the Sun came into being 4.5 billion years ago with nearly the same radius, mass, density and chemical composition.

But only one, Earth, developed an atmosphere conducive to life. The other, named with unwitting irony after the Roman goddess of love, is an inferno of carbon dioxide (CO2), its surface hot enough to melt steel.

But this was not always so, says Hakan Svedhem, an ESA scientist. Venus, he believes, may have been partially covered with water before it became doomed by global warming.

 

Back to Contents