The basics of climate change

Friday, August 1, 2008

Thanks to our atmosphere, the climate on Earth is (on average) a balmy 59 degrees Fahrenheit. Compared to other planets in our solar system, our atmosphere is the most likely to support life (at least life as we know it). Our nearest neighbor, Mars, is closest in temperature but has an atmosphere less than 1 percent as dense and thus ranges from a chilly minus-112 to plus-23 degrees. Without our own treasured atmosphere, we'd be shivering at 5 to 22 degrees. More likely, we'd simply not exist.

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