“We must not believe those, who today, with philosophical bearing and deliberative tone, prophesy the fall of culture and accept the ignorabimus. For us there is no ignorabimus, and in my opinion none whatever in natural science. In opposition to the foolish ignorabimus our slogan shall be: We must know — we will know!” —David Hilbert
What is Global Dimming? The topic of global dimming, known in scientific terms as the aerosol masking effect (video), is often misunderstood. Global dimming produces forces that act opposite to global warming for which it has become known as a devil’s bargain. It has been implicated in both climate change denialism and doomism[1]. It is a well-known scientific phenomenon, like its counter part global brightening (video). The global warming puzzle would not be complete without understanding global dimming; the dark side of the debate. This topic is introduced by Dave Borlace of Just Have a Think in the following video.
Global dimming happens when tiny particles, known as aerosols, the by-product of fossil fuels or other pollutants, absorb solar energy and reflect it back into space. The result is a reduction in the amount of global direct irradiance at the Earth’s surface. This creates cooling and warming effects as it decreases the amounts of direct and diffuse solar radiation reaching the surface of the Earth. In addition, global dimming interferes with the hydrological cycles in the biosphere and reduces evaporation rate. It also impacts cloud formation which is an indirect effect that has further implications. Cloud physics and particle physics are fascinating and challenging subjects that we will take a closer look at here. Clouds are climate wild cards (video).
Natural Versus Anthropogenic Aerosol Sources
Anthropogenic aerosol sources include sulphate from burning fossil fuels like coal, soot from factories or wood-burning, and dust from roads and land degradation. It is known that anthropogenic aerosols, like those from factories, tailpipes, and fires negatively impact the environment and can cause everything from warming to cooling, to deadly air pollution, to the acceleration of glacial melt around the globe by impacting albedo.
Typically global dimming discussions focus overly on manmade sources, while forgetting natural ones. Naturally occurring aerosols include plankton, deserts, trees, sea salt, dust, and volcanoes. Volcanoes have long been known to produce a cooling effect in the atmosphere.
Volcanoes emit sulfur dioxide (SO2) into the upper atmosphere, known as the stratosphere. This is above the troposphere where weather actually happens. This impact can last several years unlike industrial aerosol sources which go into the troposphere and are rained out typically in less than a week. Natural aerosols can offset greenhouse gas warming and have the potential to cool the Earth. Natural aerosol sources can have much more powerful impacts than anthropogenic sources and should not be forgotten or underestimated in this discussion. In fact, they are responsible for creating the conditions for a Snowball Earth discussed in the following PBS Eons video.
Real-Time Particulate Maps NASA has created a map showing global aerosol distribution for further modelling. This will allow scientists and the public to visualize the movement and impacts of these dangerous particles. Scientists must continually investigate the extent and knock-on effects of these large scale phenomena. Other maps that provide data on aerosol pollution include the Aerosol Pollution Map from Windy and the AirVisual Real-time Pollution Map, Zoom Earth, Climate Reanalyzer, NASA Worldview, Earth Nullschool and CAMS Copernicus also provide temperature maps as well as greenhouse gas and particulate matter tracking.
The Hidden Dangers of Aerosol Dimming
The aerosol effect is well-established in scientific research, including the well-known pan evaporation data. There is no question that pollution-based aerosol dimming has an important role to play in climate forcing. This dangerous effect is masking some human-caused global warming, but how much is in question. There is still much scientific debate about the extent and impact of both global warming and global dimming. The purpose[2] of this discussion is to uncover and investigate the sometimes conflicting research on this matter.
Aerosol dimming, caused by introducing industrial pollutants to the natural environment, is a serious threat to the health of human, animal and plant life. People all over the globe are increasingly facing serious health complications related to air pollution, smog, and acid rain. New reports are now linking high risk of respiratory infections like COVID-19 to air pollution. Recent studies report that “the climate effects of anthropogenic aerosols have masked some of the warming induced by greenhouse gases (GHGs) along with some impacts of that warming. These temperature effects may be beneficial but are almost certainly overwhelmed by aerosols’ negative health impacts.”
We will take a closer look at the dimming dilemmas facing us here and update some of the outdated and polarized framing of it that has dominated the discussion for more than a decade.
“Global dimming has devastating effects on the earth’s environment and living beings. The pollutants causing global dimming also lead to acid rain, smog and respiratory diseases in humans. [It also destroys and acidifies natural habitats for animal and plant life].” —Conserve Energy Future
A Brief History of The Particle Puzzle Eminent climate scientist James Hansen, former director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, is among the first to publicly debate this problem which has beenrecognized since 1950. In 1985, an English Scientist, Geraid Stanhill, who coined the term Global Dimming, had noticed a 22 percent drop in sunlight compared to the 1950 findings.
In an epic program on this topic that first aired on PBS in 2006 titled Dimming the Sun, James Hansen introduced global dimming to the public. Additionally Veerabhadran Ramanathan, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, is also credited as being among the first to unravel the mystery of global dimming and to inspire the pan evaporation studies. These studies were further discussed in the BBC Horizon Documentary. This documentary has been archived as outdated by the BBC.
Hansen initially raised the concern that if we cut back on aerosol pollution, global warming would be compounded by this effect, especially if we don’t handle this situation very carefully (by which he meant drawing down gradually). Hansen first referred to this as a Faustian Bargain more than a decade ago stating that “aerosols have a cooling effect (by reducing solar heating of the ground) that depends on the rate that we pump aerosols into the air, because they fall out after about five days.”
Hansen presented the dimming dilemma as a deal with the devil, but one with a potentially manageable solution; that being a gradual reduction in aerosol emissions. Yet the non-science public subsequently began to over-dramatize the dilemma, often characterizing it as a catch-22. It quickly became known as an impending disaster with no way out. This is portrayed in the now outdated and archived original BBC Dimming documentary (video).
Those at NASA Langley, furthering Hansen’s work, have also reported on this topic. In the following video, Bruce Doddrige a NASA scientist, introduces uncertainties surrounding the study of our particulate atmosphere and at the end begins a discussion often left out of the public debate on how to reduce both global warming and global dimming at the same time, using natural geoengineering methods such as biochar, iron salt aerosols, and rewilding.
Doing the Math: How Much Warming Is Dimming Masking?
It is understood that reducing emissions will alter solar irradiance and decrease the aerosol masking effect which might mean the loss of some net cooling. How much is still in question. You will soon notice that there are many different estimates given in different studies. Modeling can vary widely from study to study.
Additionally related phenomena are poorly modeled. “Current global climate predictions do not correctly take into account the significant effects of aerosols on clouds on Earth’s overall energy balance.” says an article on this topic. A related issue is the known diversity in precipitation responses in present climate models (Knutti & Sedláček, 2012), which also affects extreme weather index calculations.
According to this Geophysical Research Letters study, “we show how cleaning up aerosols, predominantly sulfate, may add an additional half a degree (0.5°C) of global warming, with impacts that strengthen those from greenhouse gas warming.” Most scientists, journalists and researchers speaking on this say the amount of warming from dimming given in the most widely cited and published estimates is between 0.25 and 0.5°C. Various other estimates discuss that between 0.25-1.1°C of warming MIGHT BE possible. Studies do vary widely. There is no one answer. But the most common answer given is 0.5°C. This is also given in the AR5, the latest IPCC reporting on this, which also gives 0.5°C.
Some studies do indicate a wider range, but there are less models showing this and they also point to more immediate regional and short-lived impacts. “According to this study, “removing aerosols induces a global mean surface heating of 0.5–1.1°C, and precipitation increase of 2.0–4.6%. Extreme weather indices also increase. […] Under near‐term warming, we find that regional climate change will depend strongly on the balance between aerosol and GHG forcing.” They indicate that a problem with this study is that “one clear limitation of the present study is the low number of models, compared to larger multimodel intercomparisons such as CMIP5.” The key takeaway here is that regional warming is a very real danger when the mask is removed suddenly.
The Dimming Dilemma According to the experts, the only means by which humans can avoid climate catastrophe is to make a significant reduction in industrial activity and greenhouse gasses (GHGs) e.g. carbon dioxide (CO2). This would simultaneously reduce scattering aerosols e.g. sulfur dioxide (SO2) that impact cloud nucleation and formation. Quite simply, less cloud cover means less cooling, i.e. less dimming. In a warming world, there is much fear and trepidation around this predicament.
Because of this global dimming has become the constant plot of disaster fiction scenarios, even contending that we have to keep burning fossil fuels in order to avoid a ‘dimming disaster’ that will cause all life on Earth to go extinct in short order. The tendency to oversimplify and overstate aspects of the aerosol masking effect in popular media, among the non-science public, has led to problematic reporting, exaggeration[3], and fake news.
It is clear that we have entered the sixth mass extinction largely due to greenhouse gas emissions among other human impacts on the biosphere. In fact, the last time CO2 emissions were this high, modern humans didn’t exist. There is no question that we have to stop emissions of these toxic substances as a global species. At this point it deadly air pollution is also making us susceptible to pandemic outbreaks like COVID-19. According to Dr. Peter Dazsak on Democracy Now!, “by making the planet sick, we are making ourselves sick.”#FLATTENTHEOTHERCURVE
This risks of continued pollution and high emissions, far outweigh any perceived benefits. Despite the difficulties inherent in this science, and our current inability to fully model this problem, we already know what we have to do. We have to cut emissions now, even though there are remaining uncertainties.
At this point, the top researchers in this field are still investigating what the impacts of this effect and combined phenomena might be on average global temperature (AGT), how global or regional these impacts are, how lasting they are, and what mitigating strategies might effectively reduce these impacts.
This is a matter of scientific inquiry still under investigation. This has long been an understudied phenomena with many potential unknowns. But we have to avoid oversimplification and inference-observation confusion, i.e. jumping to conclusions (video). For the last decade or more, one study after another has come out noting various dimming effects and then challenging them. Failing to cite a robust set of sometimes contradictory evidence is a failure of scientific objectivity. It is cherry picking the data. Let’s actually look at what the latest studies are reporting.
Another study claims that decreases in cloud-water from some forms of pollution balance out the increases in cloud-water from other sources. Their bottom line conclusion is that “we estimate that the observed decrease in cloud water offsets 23% of the global climate-cooling effect caused by aerosol-induced increases in the concentration of cloud droplets. These findings invalidate the hypothesis that increases in cloud water cause a substantial climate cooling effect and translate into reduced uncertainty in projections of future climate.”
Studies are also noting that the effects of dimming are more regional, than global. Additionally, when you look at the whole world at once, rather than region by region, the net economic effect of this cooling is likely to be small due to these effects between latitudes.
Not only are the effects of dimming being shown to be more regional than global, they are sometimes short-lived in some areas, but longer lived in other regions like the Arctic. It is true that aerosols produce the biggest effects in the regions where they’re emitted. This is likely especially the case in the Arctic where the sensitivity is much higher. Scientists speculate that the dimming over the Arctic may be masking some of the already shocking levels of polar amplification we are already seeing (a dangerous feedback). There are several proposals for geoengineering in the Arctic because of this.
Aerosols in the atmosphere are a very real problem for the climate and for air quality. Using simulations from a climate model, which took changes in aerosol loading into account, some researchers conclude that as much as 0.5 degrees Celsius of the warming that took place in the Arctic between 1980 and 2005 can be explained by aerosol reductions in Europe during that time. In other words, as the aerosol “mask” is being pulled away, researchers are seeing an enhanced regional warming as a result. These regional effects, though short-lived can be disastrous in some regions like the Arctic.
But, we still need to remember that these regional effects take longer to show up in average global temperature (AGT) data, or global mean temperatures. In other words, it takes much longer for the entire system to respond. Another important thing to remember about aerosols is that they tend to have a rather short lifespan in the atmosphere — eventually, the rain brings them back out of the sky in just a few weeks time or even a matter of days. This means these more regional than global effects are also potentially short-lived in many cases, especially when compared to the effects of greenhouse gasses (GHGs).
Related effects can also cancel each other out. Experts are noting more recently that reducing some aerosols, like smog, can even serve to reduce a source of warming and cooling at the same time. Emissions from black carbon from fossil fuels can contribute to both warming and cooling (video) in different ways. This is really tricky stuff. Black carbon (BC) is a primary aerosol emitted directly at the source from incomplete combustion processes.
Climatologist Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in a Twitter thread commenting on the new aerosol research further says, “you cannot assume that net zero CO2 emissions must also imply zero anthropogenic aerosol emissions. As a result, he added, it’s important to note that anthropogenic aerosols will not suddenly disappear and make global warming much worse.” And even if they do, as in the COVID-19 shut downs, there are still other aerosol sources which will be discussed below.
There’s No Evidence For A Conflict
The jury is still very much out on the consequences of the global dimming effect as we drawdown especially as it presents with other complex related and conflicting phenomena. According to Hansen et al “the amount of dimming is [as yet] uncertain because global aerosols and their effect on clouds are not measured accurately” and other mitigating factors have not been considered until more recently. The complexity of this problem is clearly bad enough without exaggerating or oversimplifying it.
Additionally, the contentious framing among non-science public has now become disabling and increasingly inaccurate on this issue. It forces a narrative that is highly polarizing. It further refuses any proposed solutions as “hopium.” This is great for media drama, click bait and getting attention, but it is bad for science.
While it is true that our continued reluctance to reduce carbon emissions fast enough makes the two goals of eliminating air pollution and limiting global warming seem mutually exclusive, the real dilemma is caused by our inertia and failure to act. It is also because of our continued adherence to business as usual (BAU).
But the good news is that in reality, new studies are finding there is no evidence for a conflict between the goals of reducing climate warming and aerosol pollution at the same time. This is not getting reported even though it is clear that he risks posed by continued industrial aerosol pollution far outweigh the benefits. There is no question that global cities must cut emissions in the scientific literature; which has reached a consensus on this matter summarized as follows:
“Oversimplification of the notion that phasing out fossil fuels may have negative consequences in the immediate term may have delayed uptake of policies that would be beneficial to climate on all timescales as well as to air quality and human health. This study helps make it very plain that robust planning of climate policies requires expert interpretation of plausible scenarios to avoid any such confusion….This means that even a “very ambitious but plausible” phaseout of fossil fuels “leads to relatively minimal change in the near-future warming…The study shows that there is “no evidence for a conflict” between the goals of reducing both climate warming and air pollution, the paper concludes.” —Carbon Brief
Further, according to Phys.org, “our study provides assurances that polluted air has a limited ability to prevent the atmosphere from heating up, in addition to being bad for people’s health. There is now one less excuse for us not to cut emissions of both air pollution and greenhouse gases, or we will continue to see temperature rises that put people and the natural world in danger. In any case, a small temperature rise resulting from cutting pollution is a price very much worth paying to prevent greater, long-term harm caused by greenhouse gases.”
The notion that we should keep polluting and burning the world is a disturbing absurdity guaranteed to line the pockets of fossil fuel robber barons. Voltaire said “those who can make us believe absurdities, can make us commit atrocities.” In this case, that would be failing to act to stop the climate and global air pollution crisis unfolding undeniably faster than expected everywhere on the planet.
The Denial Campaigns
Deniers continue to claim, despite all the science and evidence to the contrary, that human-caused climate change is a hoax. Also, despite the many unknowns here, various types of deniers like to assert with all certaintly that particularly global dimming will make solving global warming impossible. These denier groups vociferously argue that we have to keep burning the fossil fuels that are killing us in order to keep temperatures down; temperatures they often claim are not rising in the first place, ironically. Follow the money trail here.
Additionally, a new kind of denier has emerged within the environmental movement as well. They are sometimes called doomists. They claim ‘we are damned if we do, and damned if we don’t’ in a catch-22 with no way out; making our collective fates as inevitable as our individual deaths. This is a form of pervasive nihilism.
The history and backstory here is really fascinating and begins with Archeo-Primitivism under Guillaume Faye (1949) and ending up with Wrong Kind of Green and Near Term Human Extinction. These groups incorporate alt-right ideologies couched in liberalism. Understanding climate change and political ideologies (video) is vitally important to this discussion. It is very much a hidden history of hidden agendas. It is essential to question human extinction worldviews (video) much more in depth to understand what is really going on.
This faction argues that we have to keep polluting because removing the aerosol mask creates a catch-22 that will extinct all life on Earth in short order. They have generated a ‘death by dimming’ scenario that circulates in fake news media forums online. They exploit uncertainties in the science and the potential impacts of global dimming and brightening (as well as other physics at work here) — the effects of which can be direct as well as indirect making the sum total extremely difficult to map, even for highly trained physicists.
These group perpetuate the pseudoscience myth going around on the Internet that claims “the aerosol masking effect will cook us with only a 35% reduction in aerosols, so we have to keep burning coal to save ourselves from global dimming.” This is based on just one study. In this plot, removing the aerosol mask would produce a devastating paradox (video) and an instantaneous temperature rise on the order of as much as 1.2-5°C in global temperatures. This account conflates short-lived and regional warming related to removing the aerosol mask with global mean temperature increases. However, we know that the entire climate system takes much longer to respond.
The fictional massive rise of 1.2-5°C in temperature as the result of reduced aerosol pollution is a “completely absurd number” (video) says Paul Beckwith, Climate System Scientist. This exaggerated reporting continues to be responsible for repeated fake news warnings from both deniers and doomists who suggest that doing anything about it, like for example actually cutting emissions, is futile. This is an argument guaranteed to increase the wealth of fossil fuel investors.
In short, global dimming has become the subject of climate change denial campaigns everywhere, even in the White House. The current POTUS has repeatedly called climate change a hoax. Dimming uncertainties get used by unscrupulous entities as yet another reason to condone defeatism on climate issues in these circles. The goal of these groups is to foment inaction at the worst possible time in history. Let’s be clear, it’s not too late.
“The Trump administration put out an environmental impact report a couple weeks ago and the content is, well, unexpected. While this particular White House is full of climate change deniers, the report boldly declares that global warming will be immensely devastating – so much so that it’s futile to try to do anything about it…In a move that should be shocking to absolutely no one, the administration used this prediction to justify loosening fuel efficiency standards. The logic seems to be that our fate has already been sealed, so why not make car companies some profits while we drown in the rising ocean levels? ” —Justin Kamp
Global warming and global dimming are both problems we must solve as a global species; and luckily we know the solution. Sadly, this doesn’t mean we are using what we know. Prevention and mitigation measures have been repeatedly thwarted by fossil fuels and other corporate-controlled interests that have resulted in the current religiously anti-science and science illiterate government that has taken no action on these issues.
This is a constant reminder that we are living in a time when science and scientists are routinely marginalized and undermined by prevalent thinking errors, confusion, confirmation bias, (video) fake news, political agendas, fictionalizing, and denial campaigns. Before we jump to conclusions, we really need to do the fact-checking here.
Fact Check: Is Dimming Shielding Us from Catastrophe? According to Dr. David A. McKay, currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at Stockholm Resilience Centre (Stockholm University) “while the total removal of human-made aerosols would lead to a short-term warming of ~0.4oC (and ~0.6oC by 2100), an abrupt end to all aerosol emissions at once is very unlikely. Decarbonisation will take decades, and aerosols come from a wide variety of sources beyond just the heaviest emitting power stations. Even a challenging target of halving aerosol emissions in the next couple of decades would only lead to ~0.2oC of warming – the equivalent of around a decade more of the current warming trend – which is preferable to carrying on emitting carbon indefinitely instead and is less likely to trigger any tipping points.”
Fun Stuff: CERN’s CLOUD Project and Galactic Cosmic Rays
CERN’s CLOUD Project is very exciting but not many people know much about it. In fact, Jasper Kirkby at CERN says ‘it is simply too soon to be so polarized over this issue, because it is still being studied.’ Scientists are collecting and analyzing the data. They are working hard to share these models and their data online for the public so we can all stay informed.
According to Skeptical Science, “the CLOUD project at CERN is essentially just getting started. Its preliminary findings will help aerosol modelers, and hopefully it will continue to provide useful results…But there’s no such thing as too debunked when it comes to myths about climate change, and there’s little chance this will be the last time [that this] will be trotted out to claim that we don’t need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
This project is also exploring the connection between climate change and galactic cosmic rays. Yes, that’s right, galactic cosmic rays! In the following video with Dave Borlace of Just Have A Think this is discussed.
According to Skeptical Science, “Henrik Svensmark has proposed that galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) could exert significant influence over global temperatures (Svensmark 1998). The theory goes that the solar magnetic field deflects GCRs, which are capable of seeding cloud formation on Earth. So if the solar magnetic field were to increase, fewer GCRs would reach Earth, seeding fewer low-level clouds, which are strongly reflective. Thus an increased solar magnetic field can indirectly decrease the Earth’s albedo (reflectivity), causing the planet to warm.”
The science here is challenging to say the least. Yet it is necessary for us to study these topics if we are to be members of an informed society. We also have to understand that science never stops questioning or contradicting itself and we must be able to contend with large uncertainties without jumping to conclusions. According to Jasper Kirkby, Particle Physicist at CERN, ‘the area of aerosols is very poorly understood, yet this does not mean we don’t understand the big picture phenomena involved’ implying again, that we must cut GHG emissions.
Global Brightening in the Northern Hemisphere According to the EPA global dimming has already been reversed in North America and Europe. Sulfate aerosols declined with the Clean Air Act (1970) in the United States and similar policies in Europe. The EPA reports that from 1970 to 2005, total emissions of the six principal air pollutants dropped by 53% in the US. Skeptical Science also says “the global dimmingtrend reversed around 1990 – 15 years after the global warming trend began in the mid 1970’s.”
In this article from Forbes titled How Can We Stop Global Dimming?, this is summed up as follows: “since the 1980s, pollution controls have substantially reduced air pollution which was one of the major contributors to dimming. Airplane contrails are still around providing some dimming. Places like Poland and Texas are still burning coal by the freight train load and doing their bit to keep the skies dim. But mostly the developed world has either ditched coal or substantially restricted the crap that it puts into the air.”
This means we have already undergone some the worst effects mentioned by deniers. Now we are actually on a brightening (video) trend. According to Wikipedia “this switch from a global dimming trend to a brightening trend happened just as global aerosol levels started to decline (roughly 1990). Analysis of recent data reveals that the surface of the planet has brightened by about 4% in the past decade. The brightening trend is corroborated by other data, including satellite analyses.”
How to Reduce Both Global Warming and Aerosol Pollution
Even though the current trend is toward brightening, we still have to contend with aerosol pollution and the some 2-3% of dimming we are still experiencing. The rate of dimming varies around the world, but is estimated at around 2–3% on average per decade. This may also be increasing due to the increase in wildfires globally.
Let’s finally talk about the many proposed mitigations for the global dimming phenomena. The first thing we need to do is get our emissions down. Some are strongly suggesting that we halt fossil fuel expansion and subsidies by the 2020’s, like the Club of Rome. We need this kind of aggressive approach to make change happen in the time required. Next, because, as many have duly noted we just aren’t doing that, we likely have to consider some other options.
Because we have already unbalanced the system, we must now consider options like geoengineering. Geoengineering is often a feared concept. But it doesn’t have to be. In fact, Paul Hawken’s drawdown techniques would help us cut emissions right away. If we did this while applying the natural geoengineering techniques being discussed now, such as trees, biochar and other CO2 non-toxic and non-invasive reducing agents, we could potentially begin to mitigate the dimming effect. James Hansen has alluded to this all along. It is certain that we must clean up our act and now.
“It is going to be important that emission of both greenhouse gases and particulate matter should be reduced simultaneously [while rewilding, and adding exudates from foliage, etc.]. This will balance out both the phenomena [as we begin to gradually drawdown].” —Conserve Energy Future
We Don’t Have to Fear Clean Air It turns out that trees are known to produce natural aerosol particles that make up what is known to be the largest river on earth in the sky (video) by seeding clouds, creating cloud cover and ultimately producing rain. Tall prairie grass is also now being discussed as it is likely just effective as trees. Vegetation and rewilding are solutions that often get ignored and overlooked amidst all the drama surrounding this issue.
“Whatever way you look at it, we live on a dying planet. But dying does not actually mean dead. Despite all the damage that people have done to planet Earth in the last 100 or so years, the Earth can repair itself if we do the right things.”—John Kennedy
Reforestation (afforestation) is always a good idea. It is also a form of natural, non-toxic and safe geoengineering we don’t have to fear. Not all geoengineering involves techno-fantasy and high stakes risks with toxic components. In this case, we have the technology and it’s called a tree. Tragically, we are cutting them down for profit and industry faster than they can grow. In short, we must end limitless growth economy before it ends us.
“Nature produces abundant particles without any pollution…the trees can do it with zero pollution.” — Jasper Kirkby, CERN
Recent studies reveal that the findings from the several experiments show that trees release molecules that contribute to cloud seeding. According to these studies, it was thought that the pollutant Sulfuric acid is required for a particular cloud formation. Sulphur dioxide (SO2) dissolves in the water vapour in clouds to form form dilute sulphurous acid (H2SO3). But these studies are showing that aerosols can form and grow to the size needed to seed a cloud from the molecules naturally emitted by trees, without requiring Sulfuric acid.
In the following video from ScientistsWarning.TV, Dr. William Moomaw, discusses how carbon emissions can be offset with afforestation and other natural geoengineering techniques.
Bjorn Stevens, atmospheric scientist, said that “the findings of the experiments have another important implication regarding the public’s perception of global warming and clean air. Some scientists believe that measures such as ridding the atmosphere of Sulfur dioxide by limiting coal plant processes could remove some of the beneficial cooling effect of clouds, and therefore boost global warming. However, upon knowing that trees can do the cloud seeding job themselves, this will be less of a concern today. ” New studies continue to emerge to date recommending planting trees to mitigate climate change.
Fact Check: 9/11 & Coronavirus Aerosol Impacts Exhaust from an airplane engine contains aerosols and water vapor. Therefore, after 9/11 people contended that the shut down of air traffic following the event would result in warming temperatures as the aerosol mask was suddenly removed. Now people are asking the same question again as air traffic and emissions have been curtailed by the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) starting in February 2020. An analysis shows that coronavirus has cut China’s carbon emissions by 100 million metric tons. Also, satellites showItaly’s coronavirus response has dramatically and suddenly reduced air pollution emissions.Again, we see studies both arguing for and against this. In 2002, a study that came out soon after the 9/11 incident cited by many researchers.
Some researchers have estimated that since global dimming from aerosols is thought to be between 0.25 to 1.1°C, if we take the 1.0°C number as an upper limit, then the coronavirus closures could result in a long-term global surface temperature warming of about 0.06°C; with short-term regional warming over China of about 0.25°C. The global surface temperature warming or average global temperature warming indicated here (0.06°C) is about the same as continuing the industrial activities known to cause climate warming for another 10-15 years, but we’d get it all at once. This is something we really cannot afford.
Note that the 0.06°C is based on IF the global dimming number is 1.0°C. However the more widely cited estimate is that the global dimming number is actually less than 0.5°C. Many like to discuss the worst case or upper limit scenario here. The most widely cited and published estimates for the global dimming number are between 0.25 and 0.5°C, which would mean that the results of coronavirus warming might be more like 0.03°C. There is also some question as to how long the regional impacts might take to show up in the average global temperature (AGT) data. The entire climate system takes much longer to react.
Other studies that came out after the initial 9/11 study challenged it further. They contended that this has become an urban legend as the non-science public often confuses regional temperature fluctuations with AGT changes. “A US study by Dr Gang Hong of Texas A&M University has found that daily temperature range (DTR) variations of 1.0°C during September aren’t all that unusual and that the change in 2001 was probably attributable to low cloud cover. Elsewhere, a team at Leeds University, working with the Met Office Hadley Centre, ran contrails through its climate models and found that you’d need about 200 times the quantity of flights over America to produce a significant effect on DTR.” This will continue to be a matter of debate and likely much controversy.
“Ralph Keeling estimates that global fossil fuel use would have to decline by 10% for a full year to clearly impact CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere … It’s too early to say, if it is related to coronavirus, Keeling said, adding there were big variations from year to year and that the March trend was similar to some previous years.” ― Climate Change News
However, again dimming need not present a dilemma if we drawdown gradually and use natural geoengineering techniques. According to the most recent study on this matter, “this is very much a case of short-term climate pain for long-term gain. It might seem counterproductive to prompt temperature rises by reducing pollution, but this research also shows that this effect will disappear in a few decades. ‘If we carry on emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at the current rate, we will see bigger temperature rises that are far longer lasting. This would be incredibly difficult for society to adapt to, and would cause devastating environmental damage.”
According to the EPA we are already largely in global brightening in the Northern Hemisphere. Asia too should enjoy these same benefits of clean air. After all, it is our demand to their supply chain that is keeping half the globe breathing dangerously polluted air. And what goes around comes around, quite literally, carried by wind currents and jet streams.
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Did You Know The Plankton Make The Clouds? Did you know that Plankton have a large role in cloud production? Environmental Scientist and Climate Writer, Guy Lane says “the Plankton Meditation (video) is a guided meditation that helps you come to terms with fundamental ecological truths that are often overlooked.”
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“The evidence that climate change is a serious problem that we must contend with now, is overwhelming on its own. There is no need to overstate the evidence, particularly when it feeds a paralyzing narrative of doom and hopelessness.” – Michael Mann
Dr. Michael Mann and others have published a paper looking at summertime extreme weather patterns in future scenarios of global warming. Mann says that “while climate change will initially exacerbate extreme weather, it is possible that reduction of aerosols from atmospheric pollution could counteract this effect.”
Michael Mann also recently said, “by mid-century, once the aerosols are no longer produced, greenhouse warming will once more dominate climate. The future is still very much in our hands when it comes to dangerous and damaging weather extremes. It’s simply a matter of our willpower to transition quickly from fossil fuels to renewable energy.” Read more on weather extremes still within our grasp.
David Suzuki (video) recently said, to paraphrase, ‘it doesn’t look like we have a chance of staying under 2˚C. But those saying it’s already too late need to go away, and right now.’ We know we are facing extinction, and that is scary enough without over-dramatization.
“It’s frightening but true: Our planet is now in the midst of its sixth mass extinction of plants and animals — the sixth wave of extinctions in the past half-billion years. We’re currently experiencing the worst spate of species die-offs since the loss of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Although extinction is a natural phenomenon, it occurs at a natural “background” rate of about one to five species per year. Scientists estimate we’re now losing species at 1,000 to 10,000 times the background rate, with literally dozens going extinct every day. It could be a scary future indeed, with as many as 30 to 50 percent of all species possibly heading toward extinction by mid-century.” — The Extinction Crisis
Scientists do recognize that the situation is dire and are calling for states and nations to declare an emergency. According, to eminent climate scientist, Michael Mann “‘we can still prevent many of the worst impacts of climate change from playing out”. There’s a lot each individual can do. Get started today.
“Even if there is no hope, we have to do something. Not having hope is not an excuse for not doing anything. But the thing we need more than hope is action, because once there is action there is hope.” — Greta Thunberg
Hansen James E & A A Lacis (1990). Sun and dust versus greenhouse gases: An assessment of their relative roles in global climate change. Nature346, 713-719.
Hansen, James (2009). Storms of my grandchildren: The truth about the coming climate catastrophe and our last chance to save humanity, Bloomsbury, New York, 304 pp.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2014). AR5 Synthesis Report: Climate Change 2014. Retrieved from https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/
Hansen, James (2003). Can we defuse the global warming time bomb? naturalScience, posted Aug. 1, 2003.
Doomers, sometimes called gloom-and-doomers, catastrophists, and doomists are trending terms in climate science communities. They are used here in a descriptive and not a pejorative sense, to refer to those who see no way out of the current predicament and have begun to argue that any action to remediate the situation is futile or ‘hopium’ as we are headed for INEVITABLE catastrophe. This is a dangerous thinking error that generates a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Many in the climate community have been suffering with increased depression and climate anxiety (video) due to the sheer mass of negative, extremely dire data they are confronted with on a daily basis. Those who are experiencing hopeless, otherwise known as clinical depression or PTSD, or have become overwhelmed should seek help and guidance.
Having no hope is a pathological and dangerous condition. According to a Psychiatrist at Psychology Today, “clinically speaking, despair and a lack of hope is a symptom of Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. (Yes, that’s the worst kind of PTSD). At this time we should all be especially aware of Doom Despair (also known as Survival Despair). Individuals with this form of despair presume that their life is over, that their death is imminent. The ones most vulnerable to sinking into this particular [depression] are those diagnosed with a serious, life-threatening illness as well as those who see themselves worn out by age or infirmity. Such individuals feel doomed, trapped in a fog of irreversible decline.”
In popular culture some are now distinguishing between a near-term human extinction doomer and a gloomer as well. It is worth noting that scientists commonly refer to immediate, unpredictable changes as abrupt, non-linear change. Near-term human extinction is not academically preferred terminology and has begun to signal fake news and pseudoscience. (Back)
[2] Purpose of This Knowledgebase
The purpose of this knowledgebase is to educate on the topic of the global dimming theory, while distinguishing between science fact versus science fiction. It is clear the global dimming is a serious factor n our warming world. However, there are many misinterpreted unknowns. The primary points can be summarized as follows:
1) The 0.5-1.1°C of warming anticipated from the global dimming effect must be offset by gradual drawdown which produce natural aerosol effects such as afforestation, plankton cloud generation, and many more listed on the Scientists’ Warning Geoengineering Wiki.
2) Many of the effects of global dimming are as yet unknowns. The impacts of global dimming are not actually always “global” and scientists are just starting to uncover this noting their regional effects differ widely. This is a field in its infancy.
3) We are actually experiencing global brightening since the 1990’s.
[3] How Deniers Exaggerate
Deniers exaggerate the unknowns related to the effects of aerosols and claim that if we were to stop polluting suddenly, which is unlikely in any case, global average temperatures or surface mean temperatures would shoot up 1-3°C in a few weeks time. Catastrophists, also known as doomists, have made the claim that this is an unsolvable paradox and further, that if we were to stop polluting today by just 35% we would experience an immediate and deadly 1.2-5°C temperature citing this study by Levy et al.
They claim in no uncertain terms that this fictional temperature rise will terminate all life on the planet and drive us extinct overnight. They weave fact and fiction together so seamlessly that some have now begun to identify this as a new science fiction genre now being dubbed “extinction fantasy.” Although in a post-truth era of rabid fake news, this distinction is not clearly made for the non-science public and many begin to take these scenarios very seriously.
Upon closer inspection, this study by Levy et al actually says that these effects are still relatively uncertain, and that they would likely take until at least the end of the 21st century. Additionally, this study is careful to state there are enormous unknowns “regarding the role of aerosols in climate [and] the actual magnitude of the aerosol effect.” This means that the effects are also known to be regional in nature and that they don’t act all at once globally as these doomists erroneously imply.
According to climate scientist Professor James Renwick, from Victoria University, some doomers have claimed that “cutting aerosol pollution to zero (as would happen when and if industrial society falls over) will unmask another 2.5°C of warming. This is a factor of ten too large, as the actual amount would be around 0.25°C by current best estimates (see figure 10.5).” This shows a clear exaggeration of the data.
Doomsday media content creators overstate the unknowns to make the claim that a reduction in global dimming portends an immediate loss of habitat for human animals with human extinction immediately to follow. Based on these biased interpretations they warn copiously that we have to keep polluting or we will go extinct.
Deniers and doomists exploit speculative areas of the research for their own ends. They deliberately oversimplify and exaggerate this issue to make it fit their arguments so that they can conclude that if we keep emitting industrial pollution we are creating the conditions for extinction, and, at the same time, if we stop emitting we are creating the conditions for extinction. They refer to this as a paradox, but this is only a paradox of black and white thinking. By definition, it is not a paradox (video).
It is true that our continued reluctance to reduce carbon emissions fast enough makes the two goals of eliminating air pollution and limiting global warming seem mutually exclusive. This means the real dilemma is, in effect, caused by our inertia and failure to act. It is also because of the continued refusal to discuss what’s really going on or the actual solutions in favor of keeping business as usual (BAU) going at all costs.
