A misconception that is sometimes cited is that other planets are exhibiting signs of warming and therefore the Sun must be getting hotter, or radiating more heat.
We know this isn’t the case for many reasons, not least of which is that we have highly sensitive instruments on the ground, in the atmosphere and in space that measure precisely how much energy is being given off by the Sun; in recent decades this has fallen very slightly. If the solar radiation hypothesis were true then Earth would be cooling not warming.
Also, if it were true then there would be warming throughout the solar system, whereas in fact more places are cooling than warming. It would also mean that warming would have to be relative to the distance from the Sun (Stefan Boltzmann’s Law) but in reality that’s far from what’s happening. Pluto is experiencing runaway warming and is about as far from the Sun as you can get; Mercury, which is about as close as you can get, is neither warming nor cooling.
In our solar system there are 189 primary solar bodies such as planets and moons, warming has been observed on seven of them. They are Earth, Mars, Io, Pluto, Triton, Enceladus and Jupiter, in each case the warming is caused by conditions unique to that body.
Earth is warming due to increased retention of thermal radiation, Io is warming because of Jupiter’s gravitational pull, Pluto is warming because the pressure of it’s atmosphere has quadrupled, Triton is warming because of a change in it’s albedo, Enceladus is warming due to increased geothermal heating, Jupiter is warming due to internal turbulence and Mars is warming due to changes in reflectance.
Sometimes it’s pointed out that Neptune is also warming. Parts of it are but only because it’s approaching summer time. Our seasons are 3 months long, on Neptune they’re 41 years.
It’s actually quite easy to measure the temperatures of different planets and moons and this is done by nothing more complicated than looking at the amount of light being given off. Not the light that we see with our eyes, but light in the infrared spectrum, measure this and we know what the temperature is.
There’s more about the warming on each of the planets and moons mentioned above in these links…
? Earth - The Science http://brneurosci.org/co2.html
? Earth – Global Warming http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warm...
? Enceladus: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/sci...
? Io http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Io_%28moon%...
? Jupiter: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006DPS......
? Mars: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11...
? Neptune http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2003...
? Pluto http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Pluto_...
? Triton: http://www.boulder.swri.edu/TritonWatch/...
I hope the self proclaimed climate scientists are happy with the confusion that their little political scampaign has generated.
If you define global warming as the warming that humans have caused then obviously humans didn't cause any warming on other planets. If you define it as any warming, then the odds are at least 50% that any other planet would be experiencing warming at this given second, or year, century, or millennium. It all depends on what GW means to you.
Then I have to ask, I James serious or was he making a joke? Really. Mercury is closer to our moon in size and characteristics. It is really close to a giant ball of nuclear fusion and it will take a lot more than millennia to get it "correct"
Sorry but the previous answers are totally incorrect.
Mercury never had an atmosphere.
Other planets DO have Global Warming occuring. Even though Mercury is closest to the Sun, Venus is MUCH hotter. This is due to its atmosphere being 97% CO2 (Earths is 0.04%) and the average temperature being a whopping 476 deg C (Earth is 15 deg C).
Mercury is actually an example of a planet where global warming ran rampant, as a result of greenhouse gasses being expelled into the atmosphere and causing the planetary temperature to rise. It is now in such an advanced state of global warming that it would literally take millenia to correct the effect, and would require such great amounts of energy and oxygen as to render the task almost impossible. If global warming is allowed to run rampant on Earth, a few thousand years into the future may see the Earth turned into the same state as Mercury
GLOBAL WARMING IS NOT THE SAME AS CLIMATE CHANGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Global warming:a gradual increase in the overall temperature of the earth's atmosphere generally attributed to the greenhouse effect caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide, CFCs, and other pollutants.
So no, but due to the atmosphere and other factors they may experience climate change due to natural causes eg increased volcano activity.
Most likely not, Global Warming is because of the gases that WE send to the Ozone, but i mean, aliens might be doing the same to other planets...
Not now, they are starting to cool as is Earth.
