Global Dimming Evidence (1 Viewer)

For Turkish Van - though I though others might be interested and might also want to add to the list of references



General intro

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1108853,00.html

with good references

Horizon programme - with transcript

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dimming_prog_summary.shtml

BBC Science article
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4171591.stm

Other useful links
http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V9/N2/C2.jsp
http://www.greenhouse.crc.org.au/crc/research/c2_bibliog.htm

Thanks a lot Jane, that's brill.

A's all the way now!

cheers Jane

I was just about to dig that Horizon stuff up for Laura

Tim

Your right Jane I for one am certainley interested and thanks for posting, makes for sobering reading.

Stewart

Stewart J. said:

Your right Jane I for one am certainley interested and thanks for posting, makes for sobering reading.

Stewart

Click to expand...

This - from the summary of the Horizon programme. Quite the most alarmnig bit of TV I have seen in my lifetime!


But perhaps the most alarming aspect of global dimming is that it may have led scientists to underestimate the true power of the greenhouse effect. They know how much extra energy is being trapped in the Earth's atmosphere by the extra carbon dioxide (CO2) we have placed there. What has been surprising is that this extra energy has so far resulted in a temperature rise of just 0.6°C.

This has led many scientists to conclude that the present-day climate is less sensitive to the effects of carbon dioxide than it was, say, during the ice age, when a similar rise in CO2 led to a temperature rise of 6°C. But it now appears the warming from greenhouse gases has been offset by a strong cooling effect from dimming - in effect two of our pollutants have been cancelling each other out. This means that the climate may in fact be more sensitive to the greenhouse effect than thought.

If so, then this is bad news, according to Dr Peter Cox, one of the world's leading climate modellers. As things stand, CO2 levels are projected to rise strongly over coming decades, whereas there are encouraging signs that particle pollution is at last being brought under control. "We're going to be in a situation, unless we act, where the cooling pollutant is dropping off while the warming pollutant is going up. That means we'll get reduced cooling and increased heating at the same time and that's a problem for us," says Cox.

Even the most pessimistic forecasts of global warming may now have to be drastically revised upwards. That means a temperature rise of 10°C by 2100 could be on the cards, giving the UK a climate like that of North Africa, and rendering many parts of the world uninhabitable. That is unless we act urgently to curb our emissions of greenhouse gases.

Which all goes to show that once you push things too far they snowball out of control. When are these so-called responsible politicians going to get their fingers out of their arses and do something positive instead of just endlessly bullsh*****g the rest of us?

Gus

don't think our leaders motorcades will feature hybrid/electric cars anytime soon