As claims go, the suggestion that the entire solar system is warming intensely is a corker. Mars and Pluto are heating up like Earth, it is alleged - disturbing news that appears in Christopher Booker and Richard North's examination of scare stories and "the new age of superstition" in which, it is alleged, we live.
Indeed, astronomers have known for years that temperatures are rising on our sister planets but have failed to pass on the news, we are told. This is a cosmic conspiracy - for if Jupiter and Triton are heating up, then the cause cannot be human. Our polluting influence does not extend to the solar system's perimeter. Only the sun has that kind of impact. So forget carbon emissions. Blame rising solar radiation for all global warming.
This sounds powerful stuff, though we should take care. Booker and North are committed climate-change deniers whose astronomical claims appear in a lengthy chapter dedicated to debunking any idea that Earth is overheating because of mankind's carbon dioxide emissions. Thus the revelation that global warming is an interplanetary problem, not a local one, comes from those with most to gain from the idea and provides convenient support for their campaign to ensure that gas-guzzling, coal-burning and international air flights remain inalienable human rights.
But are they correct? Can we really blame solar radiation for all global warming? The authors outline six sources and then wrap up their argument with quotes from a scientist whose solar research they clearly feel is unimpeachable. First, those sources: items from ABC News, USA Today, National Geographic, an MIT press release and links to Web sites of NASA and a media group, Space.com. None is a primary source. All are interpretations, by others, of astronomical research. They share a common thread, however: that unexpected warming has been detected on Neptune's moon Triton, on Jupiter, on Pluto and on Mars' shrinking southern ice cap.
This, then, is the conclusive proof that planetary heating is "taking place throughout the solar system." In fact, it is merely an example of scientific cherry-picking. All planets have seasons and there is no reason to believe that these case studies are anything other than instances of this phenomenon. "Any moon or planet with an atmosphere will experience temperature fluctuations. There is no evidence these examples are anything other than those caused by seasonal variations," says Professor Carl Murray of Queen Mary College, London. "These people have added two and two and got five."
This point is supported by Murray's colleague, atmosphere physicist James Cho: "These references are very selective and misrepresentative," he says, a view that is also backed by Oxford Professor Peter Read, who has worked on several robot missions to Mars. "Take the melting of the ice cap on Mars' south pole. There is no evidence of warming happening elsewhere on the planet. The effect is most probably some local climatic phenomenon. So is the solar system in the grip of global warming? No, it isn't."
And then there is that final interview - with Cambridge astrophysicist Nigel Weiss - that is sourced to Canada's Financial Post. He is said to support solar radiation changes as the cause of Earth's woes and believes things will soon get cool again once the sun mends its ways. Direct quotes from Weiss are included.
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