Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says

Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says: "Simultaneous warming on Earth and Mars suggests that our planet's recent climate changes have a natural—and not a human-induced—cause, according to one scientist's controversial theory."

"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.

Abdussamatov is not alone in his beliefs. Last fall a group of German researchers also concluded that the sun was the primary cause of the historically recent increases in global mean temperature. [insert URL here]

Humans have a significant effect on this planet. Pick a satellite image, any image, and it's obvious that we've been here :) And of course we could soil our environment so badly that we die out.

Still, the hand-wringing over climate change often sounds like an oblique claim to importance. Dominion over the animals, created in God's image, etc. It's an anthropocentric world-view that even atheists can embrace. So reminders of the relative importance of the sun are good for our humility.

Unfortunately, the article notes several reasons why Abdussamatov's claims are met with skepticism. Mars has much bigger orbital wobbles than Earth, so it endures bigger climate swings. Greenhouse gases are important to our climate; without them life probably wouldn't have flourished here. Etc.

Abdussamatov does offer a way to test his claims, but it will take some time:

"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."