[Wash Times] Earth isn’t the only planet grappling with climate change, although this other orb doesn’t have much in the way of fossil fuel emissions or a 97 percent of scientific "consensus" on global warming.Newly published evidence suggests Mars is experiencing global warming as it emerges from an ice age.
The red planet, which moved closer to the Earth on Monday than at any other time since 2005, has retreated from a glacial period that would have covered large areas in white before the thaw about 370,000 years ago, according to a study published Friday in the journal Science.
The research was conducted using an instrument on board the NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that allowed an unprecedented examination of "the most recent Martian ice age recorded in the planet’s north polar ice cap," according to a NASA press release.
Research was led by planetary scientist Isaac B. Smith at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
"We found an accelerated accumulation rate of ice in the uppermost 100 to 300 meters of the polar cap," Mr. Smith said in a statement on the SRI website. "The volume and thickness of ice matches model predictions from the early 2000s. Radar observations of the ice cap provide a detailed history of ice accumulation and erosion associated with climate change."