Climate Change & Environmental Science

Natural and Extraterrestrial Factors Affecting Climate Change

Venus, Earth, and Mars are the second, third, and fourth planets in the solar system counting outward from the sun. Of all the planets in the solar system, Mars and Venus are most similar to Earth. Venus is almost exactly the same size and has a thick, cloudy atmosphere. Mars, although having a mass only about one-tenth that of Earth, has an atmosphere, clouds, frosts, and dust storms, with polar caps of frozen carbon dioxide and water and large amounts of subsurface permafrost. In fact, since both planets have atmospheres, they have climates, and since they have climates, they can experience climate change. Study of Martian and Venusian climate in the 1960s and 1970s helped spark scientific thought about climate change on Earth, and the validity of mathematical principles used to model climate change on Earth is sometimes tested today against observations of those planets.