Cleaner Air Could Speed Global Warming 344
Hugh Pickens writes "Scientists estimate that the US Clean Air Act has cut a major air pollutant, sulfate aerosols, by 30% to 50% since the 1980s, helping greatly reduce cases of asthma and other respiratory problems. But NPR reports that this good news may have a surprising downside: cleaner air might actually intensify global warming. One benefit of sulfates is that they've been helpfully blocking sunlight from striking the Earth for many decades, by brightening clouds and expanding their coverage. Researchers believe greenhouse gases such as CO2 have committed the Earth to an eventual warming of roughly 4 degrees Fahrenheit, a quarter of which the planet has already experienced. But thanks to cooling by aerosols starting in the 1940s, the planet has felt only a portion of that warming. And unlike CO2, which persists in the atmosphere for centuries, aerosols last in the air for a week at most, so cutting them would probably rapidly accelerate global warming. The author of 'Hack the Planet' says: 'As we take away that unexpectedly helpful cooling mask, we're going to be facing more global warming than we expected.'"
Re:Wow.. (Score:5, Funny)
If the media has taught me anything, it's that every single substance, whether artificial or naturally occurring, both causes and cures cancer.
Re:Deja'vu? (Score:3, Funny)
why hasn't anyone noticed that the next ice-age is due soon, and maybe it might be a good idea to do something about it?
Martinis and beer are why. They're both better cold.
Re:Everything! (Score:2, Funny)
At least they didn't somehow make it an iphone news.
If we are to air (Score:5, Funny)
Climate alarmism in action (Score:5, Funny)
"If we continue to cut back on smoke pouring forth from industrial smokestacks, the increase in global warming could be profound," Kintisch writes in an opinion piece for the Los Angeles Times. Kintisch isn't talking about greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide; he's talking about another kind of pollutant we put in the sky -- "like aerosols from a spray can," he tells NPR's Guy Raz. "It turns out that those particles have a profound effect on maintaining the planet's temperature." Greenhouse gases and aerosol pollutants work in opposing ways on the Earth's climate, Kintisch explains. "The greenhouse gases warm the planet when they're emitted, because they absorb heat reflected up from the ground -- the greenhouse effect. These aerosols, though, do the opposite. They block sunlight, they make clouds more reflective -- and by doing that, they actually cool the planet. "The problem is that we're cutting the cooling pollution as we make our air cleaner," he says. Some scientists, he says, are confident that this is connected to global warming, but they don't know how large the effect is. "That's the frightening thing, because if it's a big cooling effect, it means that we've been actually warming the planet more than we know," Kintisch says. "As we take away that unexpectedly helpful cooling mask, we're going to be facing more global warming than we expected.
BINGO!
Re:Fuck You Global Warming (Score:5, Funny)
You mean something like volcano ash, but higher?
Hmm... maybe we need a bigger volcano...
Re:Everything! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Trolls. Everywhere. (Score:4, Funny)
the planet has been here for what? 4 and a half billion years, and we've been here a hundred thousand years, maybe 200 thousand. And we've only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over 200.
Not according to the next US president.
Re:Wow.. (Score:5, Funny)
Wait! you found the missing link!
It's not that everything gives you cancer....
It's that the MEDIA gives you cancer!
Re:A little known fact (Score:5, Funny)