Omigosh! Mars has suffered both Global Warming and Global Cooling! Quick—pass another subsidy! Charles Q. Choi reports for Fox:
Peering beneath the ice at the north pole of Mars has now revealed the red planet may be surprisingly colder than was thought.
Any liquid water that might exist on Mars therefore might be hidden deeper than once suspected, closer to that world’s warm heart, researchers suggested. …
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter… scans revealed the polar cap has up to four layers of ice rich in sand and dust, each separated by clearer sheets of nearly pure ice. Each dirty and clean layer is some 1,000 feet thick (300 meters).
These dirty and clean layers were created by ages of intense dust storms followed by icy eras. This five-million-year-long cycle was likely driven by wobbles in Mars’ tilt and fluctuations in the shape of its orbit around the sun.
The more sunlight the red planet saw because of these changes, the more the polar icecaps retreated and the more dust storms Mars saw.
You mean something other than human production influences climate? You mean, like, maybe the sun?
Whether and to what extent human emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases influence Earth’s climate, liberty remains the best policy.
Liberty also offers people the greatest promise of mining that Martian ice and generally setting up camp on the planet. There’s a whole solar system filled with natural resources just waiting for people to exploit them.