Here’s a headline I thought I’d never see. In the 60’s and 70’s we were bombarded with images like these:
Now we hear that may be a good thing. Make up your minds! Though I think oceans have a good share of the cause too. From the LA Times
Why cleaner air could speed global warming
Aerosol pollution, which is now on the downswing, has helped keep the planet cool by blocking sunlight. Tackling another pollutant, soot, might buy Earth some time.
By Eli Kintisch
You’re likely to hear a chorus of dire warnings as we approach Earth Day, but there’s a serious shortage few pundits are talking about: air pollution. That’s right, the world is running short on air pollution, and if we continue to cut back on smoke pouring forth from industrial smokestacks, the increase in global warming could be profound.
Cleaner air, one of the signature achievements of the U.S. environmental movement, is certainly worth celebrating. Scientists estimate that the U.S. Clean Air Act has cut a major air pollutant called sulfate aerosols, for example, by 30% to 50% since the 1980s, helping greatly reduce cases of asthma and other respiratory problems.
But even as industrialized and developing nations alike steadily reduce aerosol pollution — caused primarily by burning coal — climate scientists are beginning to understand just how much these tiny particles have helped keep the planet cool. A silent benefit of sulfates, in fact, is that they’ve been helpfully blocking sunlight from striking the Earth for many decades, by brightening clouds and expanding their coverage. Emerging science suggests that their underappreciated impact has been incredible.
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. Thanks to cooling by aerosols starting in the 1940s, however, the planet has only felt a portion of that greenhouse warming. In the 1980s, sulfate pollution dropped as Western nations enhanced pollution controls, and as a result, global warming accelerated.
There’s hot debate over the size of what amounts to a cooling mask, but there’s no question that it will diminish as industries continue to clean traditional pollutants from their smokestacks. Unlike CO2, which persists in the atmosphere for centuries, aerosols last for a week at most in the air. So cutting them would probably accelerate global warming rapidly.
In a recent paper in the journal Climate Dynamics, modelers forecast what would happen if nations instituted all existing pollution controls on industrial sources and vehicles by 2030. They found the current rate of warming — roughly 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit per decade — doubled worldwide, and nearly tripled in North America.
More at the LA Times
UPDATE: 4/19 Since one professional science writer (who will remain nameless for now since I’m giving him a chance to retract his personal attack) was unable to determine that the three intro sentences I wrote were poking fun at the fact that “clean air, a problem?” was a bit of satire, I thought I should include this caveat for those unable to discern. – It’s satire.
I suppose I’ll have to make this caveat from no on, since alarmists seem to have no capable sense of humor- Anthony
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“Researchers believe.” A standard of kneejerk reportage. Never a hint that not all “researchers” believe any such thing. Never a hint that the proposition “greenhouse gases. . .” is controversial and by no means proven.
Whatever happened to the Inquiring Reporter, the guy with pencil and pad in his hands, ready with hard questions for the “researchers”? Was he only in the movies?
/Mr Lynn
“CodeTech (00:25:23) :
Sorry, but incidence of asthma is increasing, not decreasing. Cleaner air is nice, but it is NOT decreasing asthma.”
True. However, how do you explain increased incidences of asthma in Wellington, NZ, which has some of the cleanest air on Earth (Pencarrow Head – Second cleanest air on Earth). So, some other influences?
O.T. Anyone notice the European air travel ban because of “volcanic ash” was due to cumputer report from CRU? Its in the front page story continued on page 4 but can’t find it on their website. Link to incomplete story below.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1267116/Iceland-volcano-eruption-Navy-armada-ready-pick-stranded-Britons.html
Has anyone yet worked out how much naturally produced carbon dioxide is coming from the Icelandic volcano? This is the real reason why aircraft can’t fly as the lack of oxygen causes the engines to “flame out” (as with BA9 in 1982).
But strangely, all the reports are of the ash, not the CO2.
I wonder why?
This idea has been around for a while. There was a BBC ‘Horizon’ program on ‘Global Dimming’ which I think aired about 5 years ago.
The idea is that pollution stops significant amounts of sunlight reaching the ground giving global cooling, so if we remove pollution without tackling CO2 it will double the rate of warming – 10C higher by 2100 – drying of the Amazon basin – destabilising millions of tons of methane hydrates – Greenland ice melting – parts of the world uninhabitable – etc. The usual.
At the time I was a believer in AGW so it was quite scary stuff!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dimming_prog_summary.shtml
“CodeTech (00:25:23) :
Sorry, but incidence of asthma is increasing, not decreasing. Cleaner air is nice, but it is NOT decreasing asthma.”
An interesting theory is that auto-immune diseases are caused by a lack of infection. In effect the immune system expects infection and when nothing happens to trigger the immune the theory is that it ramps up the sensitivity until it responds to non-harmful “pathogens”.
I think society/people can also suffer from a similar “auto-immune” response to risk. We are designed to cope with deadly risk (the proverbial wolf at the door). We live in a society which is now virtually free from risk. because are psyche has evolved to expect risk, our psyche increases our sensitivity to risk until we start to see perfectly ordinary things like a bit of temperature rise, a bit of volcanic gas or flu as the proverbial “wolf at the door”.
Just as sending your kids out into the garden to get grubby knees may be a way to prevent the development of auto-immune diseases. Perhaps sending hysteria-sensitised adults on real risky expeditions where there is a real chance of dying might give them a real sense of proportion regarding a fraction of a degree of natural warming.
“In the 1980s, sulfate pollution dropped as Western nations enhanced pollution controls, and as a result, global warming accelerated.”
More unsubstantiated rubbish. Between 1950 and 1990, 3rd world fossil fuel consumption skyrocketed, to surpass 1st world consumption around 1980. 3rd world still has little sulphate controls.
What the modelers predict and the actual world does are two different realities. The programmers are in the virtual world where the world is warming, while we are in the one which is cooling.
The much lower rate of sulfur deposition in soil over the past 30 years or so, as a result of cleaner power plants and vehicles, has also resulted in additional farm costs. In addition to the normal fertilizer (nitrogen, etc. ), farmers now have to purchase and spread sulfur to maintain yields in corn and other cash crops (biofuel anyone? ) instead of getting it for free. Which, btw, also means those nasty old diesel tractors and big pickup trucks will burn even more fuel. Bet the greenies didn’t see that coming.
Those unforeseen consequences sure can bite.
With about 750 gigatons of carbon in the atmosphere and something like 150 gigatons being cycled in and out of the atmosphere from various sources every year, my shot would be closer to an average of 5 years persistance for CO2 in the atmosphere. Where does this centuries idea come from?
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/carboncycle.htm
“In a recent paper in the journal Climate Dynamics, modelers forecast what would happen if nations instituted all existing pollution controls on industrial sources and vehicles by 2030. They found the current rate of warming — roughly 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit per decade — doubled worldwide, and nearly tripled in North America”
Unless we know ALL the conditions and parameters of this model their forecast is BS. It is but one possible outcome and we don’t even know if it is plausible.
GnuBreed (01:32:37) :
“Won’t the Iceland volcano provide some direct empirical evidence that can be measured re particulate effect? Plus, it should be quite easy to coordinate the ignition of 1000s of sooty fires, say from burning big piles of tires, to measure the effect of that on cooling.
These type of operations are relatively low cost and could provide direct empirical evidence of cheap ways to mitigate supposed AGW. If it is that simple, then it takes away a lot of the push to implement costly CO2 regulations across the world.”
Pinatubo eruption proved this. A cooling peak in global mean temperature
The mechanism has been known for years, the aerosol is included in IPCC forcing calculations … so there is nothing new essentially.
The mitigation possibility is there, but as I have tried to explain in an
earlier post ( mikael pihlström (01:27:12)), it won’t take us far.
sagi (04:41:01) :
“…Where does this centuries idea come from?”
It comes from the 100% political appointees who comprise the UN’s IPCC. They must show a long CO2 residence time, or their CAGW hypothesis fails: click
Curiousgeorge (04:31:43) :
“The much lower rate of sulfur deposition in soil over the past 30 years or so, as a result of cleaner power plants and vehicles, has also resulted in additional farm costs.”
It was not unforeseen, says one who was involved in air pollution control
at the time. But how do you manage to let trace amounts of S deposit on
fields all over a country and still not have excessive (acidification, direct
SO2 effects) amounts depositing around major sources?
I don’t accept so much that it is “a problem” as I think we need to understand it must had have a significant impact on the trend line and thus impacts thinking about the speed of future warming. If we had more evenly distributed the warming we’ve had over the last 100 years, what impact would that have on the modellers thinking about the rate of future warming?
For that matter, what impact would it have had on the skeptics thinking if the 1945-1975 cooling had been less pronounced?
So the Asian brown cloud (or part of it) is a good thing. Sulfate aerosols have completed rehab and join the ranks of the good guys.
I must stop chasing the white rabbit.
They found the current rate of warming — roughly 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit per decade (based on flawed ground temperatures).
Let see, no warming since 1998 x 3 = no warming per decade.
Thanks to cooling by aerosols starting in the 1940s the planet has only felt a portion of that greenhouse warming.
So the planet warms from 1860 to 1880 then cools from 1880 to 1910, we then get a warming from 1910 to 1940 and then a cooling from 1940 to 1970 which appears to be at a similar rate as the previous warming and cooling, then we have a warming from 1970 to 1998 at a similar rate as the warming of 1910 to 1940, seems like a steady increase in warming from the little iceage together with PDO influence to me.
http://i446.photobucket.com/albums/qq187/bobclive/trend1.png
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10783
“In the 1980s, sulfate pollution dropped as Western nations enhanced pollution controls, and as a result, global warming accelerated.”
Dr A Burns (04:25:55) :
“More unsubstantiated rubbish. Between 1950 and 1990, 3rd world fossil fuel consumption skyrocketed, to surpass 1st world consumption around 1980. 3rd world still has little sulphate controls.”
It is very easy to check this out: global SO2 emissions peaked in 1980
and then declined at least until 2000. The thirld world upswing is
happening now. So there would be a 25-30 year period with the
conditions described by the author exist.
@ur momisugly mikael pihlström (04:56:30) : “………………But how do you manage to let trace amounts of S deposit on fields all over a country …………” . That’s exactly the issue isn’t it? Trying to manage what is essentially unmanageable, in a futile effort to ensure there are no losers.
Of course, all this presupposes there is a climate problem, and we can actually do anything about it.
Maybe demonstrating that fearsome force of man and capping the Iceland volcano could demonstrated how much power man has over the earth.
I wonder how much CO2 and soot one tiny little volcano is giving off.
Charles Higley (04:28:21) :
“What the modelers predict and the actual world does are two different realities. The programmers are in the virtual world where the world is warming, while we are in the one which is cooling.”
And in their virtual world they always list uncertainties and needs for
future research, while in the cooling world (which is actually warming),
there is no room for uncertainties, no need to meet the arguments,
no effort on reading what is actually said.
Codetech
Causes of Asthma
A few years ago I heard a ‘conspiracy theory’, which seems to make some sense: apparently there is a strong correlation between the incidence of asthma and the introduction of lead free gasoline. When I was a child, asthma was almost unknown, but is relatively common today. Also, its incidence has reputedly soared in Eastern Europe since the collapse of communism.
It seems the early versions of lead free gasoline had a significant percentage (around 5%?) of ring chain aromatic hydrocarbons in them – good stuff like toluene, benzene and xylene – some of these are known carcinogenic compounds, but apparently they can also be catalysts for asthma and other respiratory problems.
These chemicals are apparently no problem under normal conditions as they are burnt to carbon dioxide and water vapour – the problem is in the few minutes after starting up the engine when they are incompletely burnt.
Conspiracy theory says the oil companies became aware of the problem and set about eliminating most, if not all, ring chain hydrocarbons from their fuels.
This may be BS, like most AGW, except when I asked a senior executive in the oil industry about it, his reaction suggested there was more than a hint of truth in this.
Before posting this, I decided to Google the subject, there could be something in it: http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp123.pdf
and several others.
“the current rate of warming — roughly 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit per decade”
The whole premise of the article is incorrect, as their claimed warming rate is off by a factor of three or four. Temperatures only rose by about 1F during the last century.
People believe that it is OK to lie in order to make themselves feel like they are saving the planet.
It was only late last year that the noteworthy paper by Gunnar Myhre declared that the assumed aerosol cooling between 1950 and 1976 had been overstated by 30%. Now we get the complete opposite.
Settled science? Nah, just more arm waving.
itzy (01:58:35) :
So to summarise:
1. AGW is real, and now catastrophic events are unavoidable. /YES
2. Catastrophic AGW events haven’t taken place because of the Sulfates.
/NO those events are in the future
3. Cutting the amount of sulfates will speed up the effects of AGW.
/YES
4. Not cutting industrial emissions will lead to even worse AGW.
/YES – THE CO2 YOU KNOW
5. Lowering soot will help reduce AGW.
/YES BLACK SOOT WORKS IN OPPOSITE WAY TO AEROSOLS
6. Geo-engineerng may mimic the cooling effects of Volcanoes.
/YES
….Well theres your problem solved, we need more Volcanoes, actually, i’ve got one I prepared earlier, its barely ticking over now, give the word and i’ll crank it up.
IF you can deliver one Pinatubo every year, regularly, for
the next hundred years, YES