That's all well and good, but I don't think dust can explain the climate change on Jupiter, Neptune, Titan, and Pluto. Besides, planetary climate change just adds to the growing pile of evidence that climate change is natural and there is no such thing as normal.

I agree, making claims is treading on thin ice. Besides, everyone knows that the heat gain, ice melt, and rampant destruction of the pristine Martian backcountry is due to the influx of all-terrain vehicles sent from earth. I mean there was no vehicle pooling anywhere. They just showed up as individual devices zooming around the planet. And, ssssh, they run on nuclear power sometimes to boot.

Since the hypothesis about Mars warming doesn't fit your political view on 'Global warming', no wait.. now its 'Global Climate Change' its perfectly OK to dismiss it.

Wow... what happened to the scientific community?

Mars is but just one other planet. There are other planets and moons in our system that are warming up as well. The odds are albedo isn't responsible for all of those warming bodies.

Agree, we shouldn't be speculating about Mars. Climate is a system of turbulence due to many factors. We still don't know enough about Earth. Lets get the facts right here. What we know now about the Earth is just not sufficient to draw any conclusions.

"In my opinion, making claims about Earth's climate based on what is going on in other parts of the solar system is treading on thin ice."

So is using models to form theories that the Earth is going to melt because of CO2. Extrapolating data in smooth functions works well, extrapolating data in non-smooth functions does not give a good probability of accuracy especially when using data that does not take into account several cycles. If these models were to take into account the Ice Ages over the last 400,000 years I'll bet you that today's warming would be well within expectations. But they do not. They take into account a small fraction of the data that we have available. If one were to predict the future with data collected from August to January they would conclude that we were definitely entering the next Ice Age. The fact that average temps have risen .7 degrees C since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution is not surprising at all if you also understand that the end of the Little Ice Age occurred at the same time.

This is about as far fetched as a scientist trying to explain a black hole. Laura Hannon is just a perfect example of another person getting on the Global Warming train. Everybody is doing it so let me get on board too. She states that comparing Earth and Mars is treading on thin ice. I think there is more that we don't know about Earth and Mars than we do think we know. How do you explain Greenland being green and now cold and Ice? What temperature was the ocean when Christopher Columbus came over? Do you know? Did Chris care? Just assuming there is global warming because a politician named Al Gore made a movie is pretty far fetched. How do you start to identify this? Saying that there is Global warming is one thing. Putting the blame on Global Warming is another. Plus our own Sattelites taking temperature readings don't comply with our ground based Thermometers. How do you explain that? I agree wholeheartedly with Steve.

David Achiro: "[Laura] states that comparing Earth and Mars is treading on thin ice. I think there is more that we don't know about Earth and Mars than we do think we know."

That would be what Laura was saying, yes.

"How do you explain Greenland being green and now cold and Ice?"

Simple. Lief Erickson lied. When he found Greenland, it was already frozen over. Iceland was green and lush by Viking standards. Lief named them as he did so he and his favored followers could have all the good territory to themselves.

I'm sorry, but you've been bamboozled by a long-dead Viking.

"[1]What temperature was the ocean when Christopher Columbus came over? [2]Do you know? [3]Did Chris care?"

1) I personally don't know, but climatologists might, through a technique called core sampling. They cut out a hunk of ancient ice from the Arctic or Antarctic, and based on the levels of various elements and substances (like iron, say, or sea salt), they can estimate the temperature of the world at that time, most likely including the Atlantic Ocean.

2) I personally don't know, as I said. Laura might.

3) Most likely not, unless he fell overboard. One does wonder, though, what this question has to do with Global Warming.

I'd agree with the "thin ice" comment to a certain extent, however, when every planet/moon in the solar system that can be commented on shows a warming trend (including the Earth), then there exists some very strong evidence pointing to an external warming source.

Huxle,

Actually, Greenland supported a sizable community of Vikings during the Medieval Warm Period only to be abandoned during the Little Ice Age. The community lasted for some 400-500 years and had quite an agricultural community. But alas, climate change (most likely caused by humans) plunged Greenland into another Ice Age and killed off the Vikings. Mainly because they couldn't feed themselves.

There are a great number of things that can cause climate change on other planets.
The subject is interesting but it has nothing what ever to do with AGW.
Human activity is a relatively new thing that has caused AGW on this planet. Even though SGW has caused climate change in the past without humans being responsible, the time between ice ages was always considerably longer.
Between the last Ice age and its predecessor the period of warming lasting 175 000 years and the ice age warming trigger happened 80 000 years ago, where as, the current warming trigger has occurred in half a lifetime at only 12000 years after the last ice age. Therefore we should all be concerned.
The current acceleration in GW can now be attributed only in part to human activity. Human activity has only contributed the extra power needed for a new cycle of positive feedback from nature to achieve a noticeable warming effect. Land clearing has effectively removed 40% of all carbon sinks in the last 30 years while 30% of fossil fuel derived co2 was released. This human activity has allowed both natural and industrial co2 to stay in the atmosphere longer which has developed the warming trend.
Associated warming accelerators are extra levels of water vapour emanating from reservoirs, electrical generation, steel manufacture and backyard swimming pools.
This kind of change has not happened on Mars, Jupiter or Saturn.
Rising co2 levels and water vapour in greater concentrations have a proven greenhouse effect, but only on earth where the right atmospheres exist.
We do not look at the stock exchange in France to confirm an America recession so we should not look at other planetary systems to establish the reasons for our global warming problems.
However reducing co2 from industrial sources or restricting industrial development will have little effect in averting global warming. Tipping point has already been achieved while our nation has redirected funds from our petroleum economy to secure more oil resources.
How can the AGW crew demand that we do something about global warming while our nation is at war to secure more fossil fuel? I'm sure you see the problem.
The debate should now move on to develop a way current civilisation can survive AGW and its follower another Ice age.
Global warming is at a transitional stage leading to rapid cooling as ocean currents fail to circulate global temperatures; no one is denying that global warming will cause the deaths of millions or even billions by its self but an Ice Age will wipe the earth clean of all evidence of human existence. Therefore preparing for this inevitable threat should be the concern of us all.

Brett -
Re: Abdussamatov's claims
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Here is a link to his work from a 2004 conference. Obviously conference papers are less respected than those in reviewed journals. But this isn't even a paper. It is a printup from the poster session! And it wasn't much of a poster at that -
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http://journals.cambridge.org/production/action/cjoGetFulltext?fulltextid=288609
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It contains no data, despite the fact he is an experimentalist who designed a solar measuring instrument for the space station. It is a good idea for a scientists to make claims based on data. I guess he couldn't wait.