Thursday, December 22, 2005
POLLUTION TO THE RESCUE
It isn’t easy keeping up with all this global warming nonsense. Now pollution is a good thing:
Cutting air pollution could trigger a greater surge in global warming than previously thought, suggesting future rises in sea level and other environmental consequences have been underestimated, climate scientists report today.
The warning comes after researchers investigated the effect of fine particles known as aerosols on climate change. Aerosols - particles smaller than one hundredth of a millimetre - are churned out from factory chimneys, from the burning of fossil fuels and forest fires ... Cutting down on aerosols by improving air quality means that the Earth will in future be less shielded against the sun’s rays.
Buy an SUV, save a drowning bear.
“We found that aerosols actually have twice the cooling effect we thought,” said Nicolas Bellouin, a climate modeller at the Met Office. The consequence is that as air quality improves and aerosol levels drop, future warming may be greater than we currently think.”
Dr Bellouin’s study suggests that even by conservative estimates, climate models have got the impact of aerosols on the climate wildly wrong. “The discrepancy between the models and our observations is not good news,” he said.
Oh, well. Anyone can make a mistake.
Earlier this year, Peter Cox at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Winfrith, Dorset, warned that if the cooling effect of aerosols turned out to be greater, it could trigger faster global warming.
“It’s quite a bizarre thing, because the last thing you want to suggest to people is that it would be a good idea to have dirty air, but as far as climate change is concerned, that’s right.”
If Mr Cox actually cared about the planet, he’d get over his problems with dirty (or, as I prefer to call it, “enhanced”) air and encourage the greater use of Gaia-friendly pollutants. And he can cut down a few trees while he’s at it.
(Via Bernie “Ecologically Sustainable” Slattery)