BBC on Global Dimming

linoleo writes "The BBC reports that the amount of solar energy reaching the Earth's surface has declined significantly between the 1950s and the 1990s, apparently due to particulate air pollution. Scientists are worried that this global dimming may be disrupting the pattern of the world's rainfall. Most alarmingly, it may have led us to greatly underestimate the greenhouse effect: with particulate pollution being brought under control, a global temperature rise of 10 degrees Celsius by 2100 could be on the cards, rendering many parts of the world uninhabitable." The lengthy transcript of the show is available.

Comments

Output Increasing

[Wyatt Earp]

And at the same time the amount of energy put out by the Sun is increasing.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy /sun_output_0 30320.html

http://www.hypography.com/article.cfm?id=32945

photographic memory

[Blitzenn]

This would certainly explain something that has bothered me for some time. I am cursed with a memory that remembors images with clarity I wish I didn't have. I have noticed that images from my childhood, (admittedly decades old now), seem to be 'brighter' than those I have of recent times. It's not a 'hazy' difference as you would expect. It is that the images seem 'brighter' to me. If I revisit the same location, it's not the same, even on a bright sunny day.

I know it probably seems ludicrous to most people. I don't talk about things like that normally, because people just dismiss you as nuts, but it's real to me. I am curious, are there any others out there with long term photo memories that exhibit the same thing as I see?

global warming? No, global climate change....

[iamnot]

As a student of global climate change (the warming part has long since been dropped), a few scientific facts need to be added.

#1 - Global climate change means exactly that - it will get warmer in some places, colder in others. And while idyllic thoughts of long summers around Great Bear Lake might spark a real estate boom, there will be a few downsides to the change. Disease vectors love warm weather, which means that pesky malaria (so, caused by bad air after all!) will become a feature of northern summers.

#2 - The problem of increased warming due to pollution reduction is well known. These are relatively large particles being talked about, the ones that reflect sunlight back out (like after a volcano) - this does not include the smaller particles that have a much larger "green house" effect. Thus as we reduce large particulate pollution, the speed of warming will indeed increase.

#3 - The "wait and study it so we know what is happending" arguement. This arguement has many supporters, including those who love discount rates. The fact is, once a glacier begins to melt (ahem, Greenland), there will be no way to stop it. Mind you, it might take a few hundred to a few thousand years... so maybe 2k'ers get the last laugh?