Global dimming: The dark side of global warming
A fascinating piece on Global Dimming – the fact that since 1960 the amount of sunlight reaching the surface has actually fallen by around 28% (yes, really) – and its effect on Global Warming.
To summarise, the pollutants in our aerosols, cars, fridges, etc., have all escaped into the atmosphere. These billions of tiny particulates in turn cause water vapour to condense on them. However, their much smaller size than naturally occurring airborne particles creates a mist of water vapour which reflects more sunlight back into space meaning less reaches the surface.
However, the build up of “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere has also lead to a global warming of the planet. Ironically, the global dimming effect has slowed the progress of global warming as less sunlight has been allowed to catalyse the warming process.
With the introduction of clean air policies in the Western world, the levels of nasty pollutants has dropped since 1990 allowing more sunlight to start filtering back into the atmosphere. Now, the dark side of this is that the CO2 (one of those greenhouse gases) in the atmosphere has started to heat up more quickly with the increasing solar radiation.
The nett effect is increasing global warming on a potentially runaway basis unless something is done about these greenhouse gases as soon as humanly possible.
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