Global warming. We've all heard about it. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, trapping the heat from the sun. The glaciers are melting. The polar bears are starving and drowning. Its enough to make me try and breathe less. But tonight, I learned something new. The solution to global warming is pollution! Ok, that really wasn't the take home message, just my sarcastic paraphrasing of it. But seriously - it turns out that all of the particulate pollution we generate has been having the effect of blocking out the sun. Solar dimming! Er, the good news (?!) is that this has actually damped the effects of global warming. The bad news (?!!) is that now we're polluting less. But no worries! China and India are picking up our slack!
So it turns out that the famine in Ethiopia that occurred during the 1980s was due to particulate pollution generated by North America and Europe. The pollution carried itself on the trade winds to the African coast, dimmed the sun and totally changed the weather pattern. This prevented the monsoon rains from falling, drought occurred, leading to decreased crop production and famine. When we cleaned up our act, the rains returned (mostly) and people are eating.
The most direct (and astounding!) evidence they have of solar dimming actually comes from September 11th. After that dreadful day, all commercial planes were grounded for 3 days all across the U.S. This means that these aircraft were not leaving their contrails across the sky, blocking the sun with their clouds. Do you know what happened during those three days? The temperature spread (i.e. the daily high minus the overnight low) got bigger by 2 degrees! That doesn't sound like much, but in the world of global climate, its actually huge. The day was hotter and the night was colder.
Ok, so what does this mean? This means that the global warming crisis is actually MUCH WORSE than current measurements are telling us. This means that our pollution is actually masking the effects of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Want to hear something even more depressing? As the temperature rises, there will be a tipping point at which the oceans no longer trap and store methane gas, and the methane will be released into the atmosphere. Methane is a MUCH worse greenhouse gas than CO2. We're doomed. Bah.
Ok, everyone, stop breathing! Save the rain forest! Kill your television and read a book you checked out from the library! By candlelight! Aah!
Hey God? Can we have a do-over? I think humanity needs it. Then again, I'm not sure I can promise we'll do better the next time around. **sigh**
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