solar forcing

Martian melting

User Image illconsidered | January 30, 2013
NASA's JPL division has an interesting article on thawing dry ice (frozen CO2) near the polar regions of Mars. Aside from its being interesting, I only bring it up as it reminds me of the faux skeptic talking point about Mars warming, ergo the sun drives warming here on earth.  It is about as far from a truly skeptical argument one could imagine as it rests (or at least it did when it originated) on the flimsiest of evidence that there is climate change on Mars at all.  A truly skeptical approach would not make the leap from two photos of one spot to a global trend.  Even if you establish the…

It's still not the sun, stupid

User Image illconsidered | November 18, 2010
Real science is about the gathering of multiple lines of evidence, bulding on previous research that built on research before that. One of the hallmarks of denialism is choosing a single study or dataset out of a multitude simply because it is an outlier that confirms their prefered viewpoint. On the "It's the sun, stupid" thread, mandas has provided a very nice listing of some of the many different examinations of solar forcing on recent climate change. As with all robust scientific findings, the methods and datasets are different but the general conclusions are all the same: solar forcing…