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More on Global Dimming
dtolman writes "According to the New York Times (registration required) if the world seemed brighter to our grandparents 50 years ago, they were right. While the sun's output hasn't dropped, the amount of sunshine reaching the Earth's surface has dropped an average of 10% since the 1950's. In Hong Kong, the sunlight reaching the surface has decreased even more - 37%! Scientists are theorizing that this is mainly due to air pollution - so this trend might reverse if air pollution clears up." We had a another story on global dimming last year.
Here is a copy of the exact same news story that does not require a registration link.
Stories like this are typically SYNDICATED, which means that you can find the exact same thing in 50 or so other newspapers, right?
Why, oh why, do people choose to link to a page that requires registration when it's totally unnecessary?
Finally, does this remind anyone else of the Animatrix, on how the skies were darkened to stop the machines?
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Before anybody asks the question we know you want to ask:
There's heat, and then there's visible light. They ain't the same thing.
Just because it's "dimmer" doesn't mean it isn't getting warmer.
There, I feel better.
Every few years this gets brought up. There was an article in the June 94 sci american about it. The topic is a bit of a yawner anyway.
more on global dimming here
Some of it could be getting reflected back into space, say by increased cloud cover.
A republic cannot succeed till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.
From the story (no reg link):
The measuring instrument, a radiometer, is simple, a black plate under a glass dome. Like asphalt in summer, the black plate turns hot as it absorbs the sun's energy. Its temperature tells the amount of sunlight that has shone on it.
Since the 50's, hundreds of radiometers have been installed from the Arctic to Antarctica, dutifully recording sunshine. In the mid-80's, Dr. Atsumu Ohmura of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich sifted through the data to compare levels in different regions. "Suddenly," Dr. Ohmura said, "I realized it's not easy to do that, because the radiation was changing over time."
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Humans' eyes' lens are going to become more opaque with age, and I'm sure there's some retina degeneration going on.
> Scientists are theorizing that this is mainly due to air pollution...
Well, since air pollution has been reduing over the last 50 years (due to scrubbers in coal plants, cleaner cars, etc.), that's probably not the case.
More likely the cause is the growth of jet air traffic, the contrails of which have already been shown to affect the weather.
See: 9/11 study: Air traffic affects climate
Wrong. (Not just because you're too lazy to provide any links. You know, like this or maybe this.)
No, you're actually wrong because you fail the reading (and understanding) the articles test - it didn't warm the earth up. It increased the temperature range for each day - that is, both the high and the low temperature - just like a clear day versus an overcast one.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
This from Environmental History Timeline:
1661 -- John Evelyn writes "Fumifugium, or the Inconvenience of the Aer and Smoake of London Dissipated" to propose remedies for London's air pollution problem. These include large public parks and lots of flowers. http://users.synflux.com.au/~ant/Evelyn/fumifug.h
"The immoderate use of, and indulgence to, sea-coale in the city of London exposes it to one of the fowlest inconveniences and reproaches that can possibly befall so noble and otherwise incomparable City... Whilst they are belching it forth their sooty jaws, the City of London resembles the face rather of Mount Aetna, the Court of Vulcan... or the suburbs of Hell [rather] than an assembly of rational creatures..."
In his diary, Evelyn writes in 1684 that smoke was so severe "hardly could one see across the street, and this filling the lungs with its gross particles exceedingly obstructed the breast, so as one would scarce breathe."
And this from Air Pollution:
In the Middle Ages London air was so polluted by smoke from coal fires that in 1273 Edward I passed a law banning coal burning in an attempt to curb smoke emissions. In 1306 a Londoner was tried and executed for breaking this law. Despite this, pollution was not checked, and on one occasion in 1578 Elizabeth I refused to enter London because there was so much smoke in the air. Smoke killed vegetation and ruined clothes, and the acid in it corroded buildings.
I always wondered if this early pollution may have contributed to Europe's mini-ice age
The folks in Pittsburgh during industrialization are familiar with the loss of sunlight. So were those in London and Manchester in England during industrialization there. The "English Disease", or rickets, resulted from low levels of vitamin D production due to a lack of sunlight attributable in part to (1) long working hours out of the sun and (2) particulate pollution from burning coal.
An interesting book that deals, in part, with that is Coal: A Human History. Also available here or from your local library.
GF.
Lots of petrified grits
The US contains 4 % of the total world population and is behind 25 % of the world's total green house gases production.
--- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
What a whacked-out site. You, sir or madam, have been sucked in. And what do all these things have in common? Proposed solutions or mitigation measures could have an impact upon those who put profit above all other considerations.
The way we live now is unsustainable. Sorry if you can't adapt, but things are going to change - voluntarily and gradually, or more quickly and catastrophically. Ideological ostriches disguising themselves as rational voices of scientific dissent aren't helping matters.
Acid rain as junk science... please. Look into Dave Schindler's research some time - there's a reason he was just awarded a million-dollar prize for contributions to the good of humanity.
Posts like yours leave me lost somewhere between pity for the dupes, anger at those who should know better, disgust for the politicians who let it happen, and sadness at our long-term prospects. I normally close with "cheers!", but I can't bring myself to add it here.
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
You don't think atmospheric scientists studying the effects of aerosolized pollution are fully aware of the limitations of their instruments and have incorporated some fudge factors and compensatory effects into the deductions? Why not check out some real science concerning the issue, look at how they correct for and acknowledge measuring instrument deficiencies, and how they reach their conclusions?
The interested reader is directed here:
Da Blog
Yes, you're right.
Summary:
Da Blog
>>This single utopic sentence should have told you it's only unrealistic babble.
And this line of thinking certainly won't help at all. Why exactly is it unthinkable that we might reduce air pollution? It's not unrealistic; actually it's downright attainable. Now if they said something like "we're promising Skittles to rain from the sky if everyone would smoke a pack of cigarettes a day" then you'd have a point about unrealistic expectations ; )
harmonious design