Global warming on Mars.Earth is not the only planet experiencing warmer temperatures, reported a February 28 National Geographic News online article entitled "Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says." "Mars, too, appears to be enjoying more mild and balmy temperatures," the article noted. "In 2005 data from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor The Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) was a US spacecraft developed by NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and launched November 1996. It began the United States's return to Mars after a 20-year absence. and Odyssey missions revealed that the carbon dioxide carbon dioxide, chemical compound, CO2, a colorless, odorless, tasteless gas that is about one and one-half times as dense as air under ordinary conditions of temperature and pressure. 'ice caps' near Mars's south pole South Pole, southern end of the earth's axis, lat. 90° S. It is distinguished from the south magnetic pole. The South Pole was reached by Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian explorer, in 1911. See Antarctica. had been diminishing for three summers in a row." What is causing this warming? National Geographic quoted Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of space research at Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, as saying that a "long-term increase in solar irradiance ir·ra·di·ant adj. Sending forth radiant light. [Latin irradi is heating both Earth and Mars." But the article also quoted Oxford University planetary physicist Colin Wilson as saying that "[Abdussamatov's] views are completely at odds with the mainstream scientific opinion." Though the effect of changing solar intensity on planetary temperatures may be considered controversial, surely no one would quibble QUIBBLE. A slight difficulty raised without necessity or propriety; a cavil. 2. No justly eminent member of the bar will resort to a quibble in his argument. with the fact that carbon-dioxide emissions on Earth cannot be causing global warming on Mars. |
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