Solving Global Warming Will Temporarily Cause Higher Temperatures
Scientists know that when volcanoes erupt and put a lot of ash and dust into the atmosphere, this debris causes a decrease in the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth. This process is called global dimming whether it is from natural or man-made pollutants in the air.
Since the amount of light reaching the surface is decreased, this global dimming will result with a decrease in the surface temperature too. As a result of certain types of pollution that mankind is releasing into the atmosphere, this is actually decreasing the effects of global warming on the planet.
Global warming is believed to be cause by other pollutions (mostly carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide) being released into the atmosphere. Therefore, all the pollution being released into the atmosphere is both increasing and decreasing the world’s average temperatures. Unfortunately, the effects of global warming and global dimming are NOT completely counteracting each other. The net effect is a continuous increase of the world’s average temperatures, thus global warming is increasing much faster than global dimming is cooling.
This problem is even more complicated than it first appears. Since global warming is now starting to be seriously addressed, alternative sources of energy (that do not create pollution that causes global warming or global dimming) are being introduced throughout the world. When these pollutants start decreasing in the atmosphere, the pollutants that cause global dimming will decrease at a much faster rate than the pollutants that cause global warming, because global dimming pollutants are larger molecules that will most likely settle first and be more easily absorbed by plants and animals.
In summary, when air pollution starts to decrease, the effects of global dimming will disappear more quickly. Thus, global cooling from global dimming will decrease first. Therefore, global warming will have less counter-acting global cooling from global dimming, so the planet’s temperatures will increase even more in the short term. How short, no one knows.
In conclusion, the solution for reducing global warming will temporarily cause even higher temperatures. Therefore, the sooner global warming is addressed, the better it is for mankind.
by Phil for Humanity
on 11/29/2007