14 DAY TRIAL // Currently, the Earth is experiencing a rapid warming which scientists blame on the huge amounts of greenhouse gas (carbon dioxide) resulted from the human activity.
But the simultaneous current warming on Earth and Mars has made Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of the St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia suggest that the Earth's global warming has a natural cause.
Scientists have observed that, for the third consecutive summer, the carbon dioxide "ice caps" at Mars's south pole had been decreasing. "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," said Abdussamatov.
Abdussamatov notes that changes in the Earth's climate have always been correlated with changes on Mars. For instance, both planets have experienced periodic glaciations 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," said Abdussamatov.
Abdussamatov's theory is extremely controversial. "His views are completely at odds with the mainstream scientific opinion and they contradict the extensive evidence presented in the most recent IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report", said Colin Wilson, a planetary physicist at England's Oxford University. "The idea just isn't supported by the theory or by the observations", said Amato Evan, a climate scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Periodical climate changes on Mars are explained primarily by small changes in the planet's orbit and tilt, not by changes in the sun's radiation. "Wobbles in the orbit of Mars are the main cause of its climate change in the current era," said Wilson.
The Earth's tilts have a cycle of 20,000-100,000 years and are named Milankovitch cycles, being blamed for glaciations. Mars and Earth cycles differ as length so it's just a coincidence that both planets are in an interglacial at this moment. "Mars has no [large] moon, which makes its wobbles much larger, and hence the swings in climate are greater too," Wilson said.
The weakest point of Abdussamatov's theory is minimizing the greenhouse effect. "Without the greenhouse effect there would be very little, if any, life on Earth, since our planet would pretty much be a big ball of ice," said Evan. "The solar irradiance began to drop in the 1990s, and a minimum will be reached by approximately 2040," insists Abdussamatov said. "It will cause a steep cooling of the climate on Earth in 15 to 20 years."
Photo credit: NASA. Mars' "ice" cap