Talk:Climate of Mars/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Abdusamatov

The more I think about it, the more I think Abdusamatov's claims aren't relevant to the article. Given the lack of reputability he currently enjoys, I don't see them as notable and anything that shouldn't be removed under the ArbCom Pseudoscience case. There are more than enough crazy claims about global warming - we don't need to spread them. Michaelbusch 22:24, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Disagree. It's something that got a lot of press so people interested in the topic are likely to be aware of it. Better to keep it here with a full discussion of its, um, "merits." Raymond Arritt 22:38, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

If you run Abdumsamtov through Google, you get ~15000 hits. Coupling that with Mars drops it down to <1000, none of which are news sources indexed by Google and many of which were a relic of my keyword choice. The only news outlet that covered him talking about Mars was a series in the Canada National Post, which seems to have been a general assemblage of all manner of dubious, and sometimes mutually contradicting, claims of the Sun causing global warming. The National Post is known for publishing such, apparently. One story only, which has been copied to a few hundred pages. Of these, very many are critical and many are Wikipedia mirrors. By comparison, there are several hundred thousand references to the climate of Mars. Michaelbusch 22:50, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

It helps if you spell his name correctly (ot at least differently): "Abdussamatov Mars" gets 10000+ hits, including the US senate and several news sources. This National Geographic article has been widely circulated - unfortunately it is a two page article, with Abdu on page one and the rebuttal on the not very obvious page two. That does not make him right, but it does make him notable. --Stephan Schulz 00:16, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I curse non-unique conversions between Cyrillic and Roman. Michaelbusch 01:31, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I hear you ;-) --Stephan Schulz 01:58, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how this section on the talk page at all justifies removing the Abdusamatov section from the article. "See talk" is hardly a meaningful reason when there's no talk page consensus at all. Why was the section removed? Oren0 02:15, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Compare the time stamps (after correction for time zones). Michael removed it and explained why. Then we explained why he was wrong. As a consequence, I have restored the section now (I hadn't even noticed that it had vanished). --Stephan Schulz 02:23, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I am still of the opinion that Abdusamtov's actions are not relevant here. They have very little to do with this article, or anything other than the eccentricities he is prone to. He has made a fool of himself loudly and in public. This does not relate to the climate of Mars. Michaelbusch 03:40, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Even accounting for variant spellings, there are only 5 Google News items on Adbusamtov and Mars, roughly 1% the climate of Mars citations (estimated). The number of hits on a web-wide search is bumped up considerably by blogs, but is still less than 1000 (need to remove relic pages). Michaelbusch 03:53, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Even 5 news items is huge for such a theory. This should go back in. TMLutas 17:52, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the solar-variation stuff needs to be in here. But its a mistake to focus on A. I think we should have a section on assertions that martian warming shows that earth warming is natural, and why there is no real evidence for this. A is only a minor part; he is in because, weak as he is, its the only ref with a shred of credibility. We have filtered out the nonsense too well William M. Connolley 09:10, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

If by filtering out nonsense you mean filtering out reliable sources that push notable views you feel are not correct and have not passed peer review, I would agree. Verifiability, not truth is at issue here and you seem to be coming around to something more like my view. Keep it up TMLutas 17:52, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

There are no reliable sources, or if there are no-one has found them. Its all trash. We need to say so William M. Connolley 20:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, what was that definition of reliable sources? Is it the wikipedia one or your personal version? Really, I don't even agree with the viewpoint being discussed here but I'm certainly not going to hang about while you casually twist the reliable sources standard without saying something. A scientist has an opinion. It's reported in multiple spots by sources usually considered reliable by the Wikipedia community. It meets all the standard definitions of notable. You are striking down these sources (even as you admit the opinion's notability) as reliable because... I don't know.

This becomes even more relevant when you notice that Malin, the guy in charge of the camera that found the retreating ice at the south pole seems to be of the opinion that nobody knows yet why it's warming. I'm keeping an eye out for some more statements in order to piece together enough material for its own section but it's hardly likely that journals are going to publish "we don't know yet" by anybody no matter how notable the source and verifiable the statement. Yes, a literature review could be done but the lack of one doesn't make non-peer reviewed statements any less worthy of inclusion in the article. Face it, the standard you're advocating isn't the wikipedia standard and worse, isn't even sustainable for an encyclopedic project of this nature. TMLutas 14:15, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Can you clarify the nature of your point? This thread is about Abdusamatov; given that Abdusamatov's statement is in the article, I'm having trouble seeing what are you arguing about. Raymond Arritt 14:57, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

TMLutas, don't put words in Mike Malin's mouth. He said that nobody knows why that region of the south pole is warming. He said exactly that and nothing else. We don't know the exact cause. This has been widely reported in the journals (check the JGR papers cited for the original report). That is not the same as advocating every piece of non-sensical ranting. If you were to claim Abdusamatov had any validity to Mike, he would likely become insulting. Connolley, I see your point. This is a perpetual problem with covering pseudoscience: by mentioning anything here, we run the risk of giving it false importance. Michaelbusch 17:11, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

picture substitution proposal

better polar scarps pictures available here that show the length of the evidence available. Since the camera taking this recently died, it's likely not going to get better than this. It's credited as a NASA/JPL photo so there should be no copyright issues. TMLutas 13:57, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

MRO has better cameras, I'm afraid. Michaelbusch 17:12, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Ice age section

I removed the ice age section again:

"One explanation could be that Mars is just coming out of an ice age," says William Feldman of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. "Those areas are like the patches of snow you sometimes see persisting in protected spots long after the last snowfall of the winter." NASA scientists have recently suggested that ice age "pacemakers" are more extreme on Mars than more familiar Earth style ice ages.

Its (a) non-notable and (b) very speculative (indeed [1] has Feldman "speculating" not "saying". It was said in 2003, after one year of Mars obs; you cannot deduce a trend from one year.

Also, the pacemakers stuff has no clear connection. Indeed, the pacemaker article says In contrast to Earth's ice ages, a Martian ice age waxes when the poles warm, and water vapor is transported toward lower latitudes. Martian ice ages wane when the poles cool and lock water into polar icecaps... so if an ice age has just ended, the poles are cooling, not warming William M. Connolley 16:02, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

You're deleting far too fast in my opinion. There's a progression to dealing with weakly sourced material that you ought to follow. I'm not wedded to the concept that Mars. RA first introduced it. If you think the citation is inapt, there's Template:Fact and all the permutations within. I think that within a week it's reasonable to expect that it either improves to the point where it will satisfy even the finicky among the editors or this truly is something that doesn't deserve a section. In any case, it takes away an excuse for an edit war. It started as a quote and this latest delete is two separate points and a cite. As long as it keeps improving, I think it's fair to tag it as needing more improvement, until it doesn't at which point leave it alone entirely. I'd suggest a sandbox as a middle ground but you don't seem to like to play in those. TMLutas 22:59, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I don't think you've read what I wrote, or at the least you aren't answering what I wrote. The entire thing is NN. Third, no clear connection (yes you've added a second point but it appears to be irrelevant). And, of course, the odd nature of Martian ice ages doesn't help you William M. Connolley 18:34, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, I don't think that you're addressing my point either which is that slash and burn deletes are not the way to go. The bias is supposed to be towards adding, not deleting from articles. Yes, one can and sometimes should delete entire sections, even articles but you shouldn't open your editing with that if you dispute a section. If you think a second point added isn't relevant to recent climate change maybe it would fit better in the historical section. That's fine by me. I think you should make as much of an effort to salvage misplaced material as I am with RA's original edit. What do you say? TMLutas 01:01, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

MB's recent repeated reverts on Mars solar warming

I don't particularly think that Abdusamatov has things right but for wikipedia's purposes, this is *irrelevant* and smarmy notes on edits implying I hold opinions I do not are ill advised. This encyclopedia, by policy, is aiming at verifiable (ie the position can be sourced as actually having been held), notable opinions and not at a grand search for truth. If WP were looking for truth, it would not open up edits to everybody the way it does.

Abdusamatov's position can be debunked, and I think it has been adequately debunked in the article. If you want to make the debunking larger, more detailed, knock yourself out. You may be surprised to find me editing to improve the debunking. I have before. I have defended others' edits recently and in the more distant past, trying to preserve and even expand points that do not necessarily agree with what I personally feel is going on regarding the recent odd data that's popping up. That's because I think that the positions were a good stub for a notable current of opinion and deserved to be in the article on that basis. Others have disagreed that all viewpoints deserve to have a respectable amount of time to demonstrate that they are notable and have engaged in what I view as slash and burn deletion. But there's worse than slash and burn out there.

I don't think cheap propaganda tricks such as making titles disagree with the content of the paragraph and the actual assertions by the scientist whose position is being described is acceptable at Wikipedia. Leave that to the NY Times. They're better at it and they already seem to have pawned off their soul decades ago (see Walter Duranty). TMLutas 19:32, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I have no intention of insulting anyone. I'd rather the article be uniform, rather than even mention this particular nonsense. It has caused no end of trouble, but that trouble is confined largely to Wikipedia. Michaelbusch 19:58, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

As has been noted elsewhere, Presidential candidate Fred Thompson has at least referenced the position which means by Wikipedia rules it should be covered. People are going to look this stuff up. Wikipedia should have something to say about it. *That* is my position and I'm well within the rules on it. You're going to have really elaborate on "uniformity" and what you mean by it if you want that standard to apply here. TMLutas 19:57, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

revert on duke study on solar output, rationale and small oops

I didn't put in my reason in the edit note for reverting MB's latest content reducing edit which was that he knocked out a peer reviewed study (actually multiple studies, I was being conservative) by vaguely asserting that it had been debunked but not providing any rationale why the question was settled in favor of his interpretation nor providing links documenting his assertion. Now it may very well be true that the Duke study and the related Columbia study the ref refers to have been shown to be in error but wiping things out like that deserves a higher standard than he demonstrated. I'm only sorry that I quick fingered the edit and didn't refer to the talk page when I reverted him. Hopefully he'll come by and see this before the issue spirals to a revert war. TMLutas 20:05, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

This shouldn't become a proxy for solar variation William M. Connolley 20:15, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

You're right in that but solar variation is such a large article that a simple link doesn't really do the issue justice. You have to wade in *very* deep to get to the Duke study reference in that article and it's not presented in a manner that's helpful. I'm not arguing against your edit but I think that we can do significantly better on this section. It's too stubbish. In fact, as a general observation, a lot of the article could qualify for section stub tags. This is not a small topic. TMLutas 22:04, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I was in a hurry, and didn't explain: if I remember correctly, the Duke study relied on stratospheric temperature measurements from balloon probes, which were found to be systematically off due to a design flaw (reported in Science last year). As Connolley notes, this is better kept under solar variation. Michaelbusch 20:29, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Could you supply a link on the debunking. The study *is* in the solar variation article so perhaps it wasn't as debunked as all that. (semi-off topic) Considering the problems that are showing up in the USHCN ground stations, single study debunkings may not be a wise standard for AGW proponents just now. What a mess seems to be forming there! TMLutas 22:04, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

weather section detail

I paraphrased some additional detail from the ref page already accepted and of longstanding. It got reverted and I put it back in. I don't understand what's the problem so perhaps MB can detail it and we can come to some sort of understanding on how to expand the section. TMLutas 20:39, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Paleoclimatology

So far as I can tell, there are two complete systems of categorizing ages on Mars. Sorting out age descriptions is important for the paleoclimatology section. I can see describing inline and using both or picking one and sticking to it with an explanation why. What's the consensus on this? TMLutas 20:37, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

If you're referring to the Noachian/Hesperian/Amazonian vs. the OMEGA based mineralogy eras then I'll say that within the scientific community the NHA category is still fully dominant over the OMEGA based ages. Jespley 18:24, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok, that's one opinion for Noachian et al age system being used, any others? Until there's a contrary opinion, I'm going to go with this. A month is long enough to wait. TMLutas (talk) 18:22, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

NPOV fixes on climate change

We have assertions that climate change is global and that climate change is local, the compromise seems obvious, don't use adjectives in the title that are controverted by text in the section. Also saying editorially that the change in the ice pits is slight while the quote we've agreed on says that they're prodigious triggers the same problem. I'm leaving the tag down because I fixed the underlying problems. Discuss them here if you disagree instead of going into edit war mode. TMLutas (talk) 03:02, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Water?

Section Low atmospheric pressure says:

...point, so if the temperature exceeded 0 °C liquid water could exist there.

Fundamental question: does it ever exceed 0 °C, or is this just an if-Saturn-flowed-in-an-immense-ocean reasoning? Said: Rursus (☻) 15:03, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Clouds and mountains on Mars

• Properties of Water Ice Clouds over Major Martian Volcanoes Observed by MOC (PhD thesis)
• Benson; et al. (2006). "Interannual variability of water ice clouds over major martian volcanoes observed by MOC". Icarus. 184: 365–371. doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2006.03.014. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)
• Benson; et al. (2003). "The seasonal behavior of water ice clouds in the Tharsis and Valles Marineris regions of Mars: Mars Orbiter Camera Observations". Icarus. 165: 34–52. doi:10.1016/S0019-1035(03)00175-1. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)

Paper dump for expanding the appropriate sections. MER-C 05:38, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Three more, this time on the general subject:

• Weather and climate on Mars
• Mars' volatile and climate history
• Recent ice ages on Mars

All this and more via Google Scholar. MER-C 10:20, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup tag?

Are we of the opinion that this article still needs cleanup? It seems reasonable enough to me. If so, please say which parts you believe need to be fixed. Oren0 07:04, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

"A lingering pre-scientific fascination with "the planet of war" also contributes to interest."? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.124.170.103 (talk) 03:53, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Methane section

The article is quite long, so I wonder if it would be OK to remove the methane section from this article; it seems to me that, even if proven to be present, it takes no significant part in the climate. It is already covered at length in the Atmosphere of Mars article, so we could just leave a link in the 'See also' section. What say you? BatteryIncluded (talk) 18:09, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

FWIW - *Entirely* agree with you - removing the methane section (& adding a link in "See also") may improve the article - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 21:53, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Lead image

I think the current lead image is not suitable for this article as it is computer generated based on radar data and thus featureless.

Since the article is about climate, the lead image should show that Mars:

• has an atmosphere (and thus clouds, winds and dust storms)
• has polar caps
• has a surface which is not uniform but differs in coloring and composition, not just in altitude

I think this can be achieved by using this true-color Hubble image as the lead image.

Scooter20 (talk) 14:30, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Temperature

A prerequistite for discussing climate change should be some knowledge of the climate. This article oddly lacks a "temperature" section. We should add one, summarising what is known William M. Connolley 19:07, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, we have some data points from the Martian landers, and "Climate of Mars" doesn't necessarily mean that we can only talk about global climate. I suppose local climate is relevant, too. Agree? (Obviously, I don't feel too strongly about this.) Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 19:20, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Putting in what is known from the landers would be a good start William M. Connolley 19:23, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I've made a start. Note that the martian atmosphere is very thin - 1/100 of earth - and a radiosonde at 10 mb in the sunlight on earth would be in need of radiation corrections. Mind you the sunlight is weaker there. I wonder if they designed this into the sensors? William M. Connolley 19:23, 8 September 2007 (UTC) This [2] is an interesting paper - frustratingly lacking the figs! I haven't found any useful data ain it yet, though... Unfortunately, the record of air temperature from the Viking IRTM instrument was evidently contaminated, making the extended, multispacecraft air temperature record the most tainted (relative to the dust and water ice records). suggests there may be problems William M. Connolley 19:35, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate the work you're doing. Once you're finished (or a couple hours from now, whichever comes last, I'm working on some other stuff for a while), I'll go back and clean up the refs and possibly look towards adding info from the current rovers. Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 19:49, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm probably done from now. The Liu paper had what I wanted, in fact a bit more than, in a certain sense: it says that T variation (at least at some seasons and some times of day) is less than the measurement error. That was in 2003; but would preclude any assertion of "global" warming unless its been superceeded William M. Connolley 20:11, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Nice work. Always a good idea idea to go back to the literature. Raymond Arritt 20:12, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

There doesn't seem to be much agreement on average temperature [3] with various figures being presented. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TMLutas (talk • contribs) 05:56, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

The temperatures are sometimes listed in celsius and fahrenheit and sometimes listed in kelvin in this section. Now to my mind using kelvin makes much more sense in a scientific context. Any thoughts? (I'm new. if this is incredibly stupid my apologies)Jekowl (talk) 13:13, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree it would be nice to homologate temp notation. Although kelvin is used in science, we can make it so much more comprehensible to the non-scientist reader if we write them all in C (and F). Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 13:18, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Ok, all of the uses of kelvin where relative temperatures so the numbers are the same but I have altered the units to ⁰C. I think adding fahrenheit value would create too much clutter here so I left it there. Jekowl (talk) 14:19, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Weather box

How is the weather box (designed for Earth) compatible with use for Mars? A Martian year is much longer, so seasons wouldn't repeat at the same time each Earth year, which the box initially suggests. In so far as Mars has months at all, it has two sets, "Phobos-months" and "Deimos-months", both far shorter than Lunar months. 12 "months" in a year is a very Earth-centered approach. As the sunshine hours seem to be for a Mars year, each "month" on the box would be around 45-50 days long (Earth) which means they can't be called January, February etc! A different weather box design is needed for other worlds (Mercury and Venus don't have months at all, as they have no moons). Walshie79 (talk) 21:03, 10 July 2015 (UTC)