Global Warming - Unintended Consequences #2732
From
the BBC:
Air trends 'amplifying' warming
Reduced air pollution and increased water evaporation appear to be adding to man-made global warming.
Research presented at a major European science meeting adds to other evidence that cleaner air is letting more solar energy through to the Earth's surface.
Other studies show that increased water vapour in the atmosphere is reinforcing the impact of man-made greenhouse gas emissions.
Scientists suggest both trends may push temperatures higher than believed.
But they say there is an urgent need for further research, particularly at sea.
Dimming no more
Between the 1950s and 1980s, the amount of solar energy penetrating through the atmosphere to the Earth's surface appeared to be declining, by about 2% per decade.
This trend received some publicity under the term "global dimming".
But in the 1980s, it appears to have reversed, according to two papers published last year in the journal Science.
The decline in Soviet industry and clean air laws in western countries apparently reduced concentrations of aerosols, tiny particles, in the atmosphere.
These aerosols may block solar radiation directly, or help clouds to form which in turn constitute a barrier; or both effects may occur.
The lead researcher on one of those Science papers was Martin Wild from the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science (IACETH) in Zurich, and this week he has been discussing the implications of those findings at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) annual meeting in Vienna.
And of course, zero mention of the fact that the Sun's output
rises and falls over time.
The Wikipedia article on
Global Dimming is excellent as well.
The BBC article closes with these three paragraphs:
The conclusions presented here present two major challenges to the research community.
One is to find ways of extending experimental investigations into the oceans and the developing world.
The second is to integrate them into computer models of climate, something which is only just beginning to happen.
Emphasis mine. People need to realize that all of the "Global Warming" hype, especially the Anthropogenic Global Warming hype is based on models that have yet to be proven to be reliable. Scientists with an agenda will cherry-pick bits of data here and there that support their agenda while ignoring other data that contraindicates it.
Sure, it seems that we are entering into a warming period, after all, there have been cycles of warming and cooling for the last thousand-plus years. The idea that humans are directly responsible for this latest warming trend is ludicrous. The idea that we can stop it is beyond hubris.
Posted by DaveH at April 7, 2006 10:27 PM