Earth dimming vs. greenhouse gases

Ha, we watched that too (the islands were the Maldives, the phenom was I think called Global Dimming, a phrase I can't seem to be able to say without tripping over my own tongue). Man, what a depressing show.

But it makes a lot of sense, Global warming has gotten all of the press but it's not the only thing going on out there, and the dimming thing means it doesn't seem as bad as it really is, so people are lulled into a false sense of security.

Pollution's bad. Really bad. We're doing a lot more damage to the planet than we had originally thought. Oof.

jeez - that was such a cheery show, wasn't it?

good thing I was too lazy to go look for a razor blade.

I'm with you, sistah. Pass the chocolate and then the spirits once the sun's over the yard arm.

you know, I really have to wonder....if Nova is showing this stuff now to the general view public, it's not as if it's news to the science/environmentalist comunity.

So, what is it that's supposed to pull our ass out of the fire?

I can't believe they left this up to you and me to decide what to do.

I mean, I'm just not qualified to be honest with you. I'm more of an implementation person. Tell you what Jespah, come up with something and I'll see what I can do to make it so.

Although....we could be in on the ground floor of creating a new religion. This time with 2 high preistesses.

One of us could be in charge of maintaining the dimness, until the other can convince the right people they'll go to Somolia when they die if they don't do something now.

Seriously, if it's as bad as they are making out, why are we getting all this half-assed media message about car pooling and buying hyrids?

What would really get people attention if saying "Ya'll gonna f*cking DIE in a drought, dude."

So, we need more pollution to offset global warming? Is that the message I should be getting?

This stuff is always on my mind and I can't help but feel helpless :-(

That the light is getting reflected ought not to be a problem (or could be the problem, depending upon one's point of view about global warming), unless you are not explaining this well. The albedo effect only raises global temperatures as the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases. When certain radiation is reflected, it's wave length increases, and it is absorbed by the carbon dixoide in the atmosphere--so, more CO2, more heat absorbed instead of the radiation being reflected back to space.

I suggest finding a link to provide, because there is something missing in this explanation.

One of the arguments against runaway global warming is that a warmer earth will have more cloud cover because of increased evaporation. Cloud cover reflects sunlight acting to cool the earth. It doesn't quite work to keep the earth the same temperature it is now since it would require warmer to get the cloud cover before moderating at the newer high temperature.

No, that's not the message, the message is the greenhouse gases would have already had a much greater impact than its had, if it hadn't been for the dimming.

The solution obviously, is to work harder on lowering the greenhouse effect first.

However, look at the average joe on the street. You know, the one who is so obese because no one ever "educated" him not to eat crisco out of the can? Do you think the message has been made clear enough to him? No, not until there's 2 inches of dust on his house will he get the message.

So, it would be up to those that do understand...my initial question stands of what exactly has been done lately?

Here's the link.

Global Dimming




Oh, and Set, here's a link for another show on PBS that airs tonight. Try to catch this one too....

Information for Set....

jespah, tell parados about the evaporation thing....I'm tired and need a nap.

Okay, the evap thing, as I understand it. Forgive me if I'm explaining things beneath you or that you already know.

Clouds are made when water droplets in the atmosphere attach to, er, stuff. Like pollen. With pollution, there's a lot more junk in the air, and it's also attracting water droplets. This is stuff like cinders and other particulates that are products of pollution. The water droplets get heavy enough, they fall as rain. However, the pollution drops are lighter and stay a bit lighter longer. Plus, they have reflective water on 'em, so they act like mirrors.

Hence you get 2 things. (1) Clouds acting like mirrors and reflecting away light and (2) less rain or less frequent rain because the droplet to cloud manufacturing process is a bit off.

In the program, one of the things they indicated is the amount of water evaporated in these big pans. It was literally called pan evaporation, and the scientists had noticed that less water was being evaporated. They also explained (and I'm sorry, but I've forgotten the details) that it's not so much less heat that causes less evaporation, but less light. Hence you can have cooler temps but more evaporation, so long as there is also less light. This makes sense as (they didn't say this part, this is just my own conclusion) you see evaporation on snowy days all the time, even when it's way lower than freezing.

One of the points they really brought home was that global warming is very real but global dimming is dampening its effects. You'd expect to see more warming, but we don't see quite as much. Dimming reduces temps and warming (of course) increases them, but the warming is a bit stronger so we do get an increase of about .5 degrees C when we'd really expect more like 2 degrees C or so.

As particulates are removed from pollution, less and less dimming occurs. That's good for dimming but the greenhouse gases aren't also being decreased. Hence we're setting ourselves up for a double whammy -- more greenhouse gases and less dimming, so that .5 degrees C will go to 2 degrees or more, by the middle of the century.

One scenario they showed was, if I recall my numbers correctly, 6 degrees C increase by the end of the century. Of course we'll all be dead by then, but so will a lot of other folks not born yet, as this kind of an increase will trigger droughts in a lot of areas. Bump that number up to 10 degrees C and Kansas becomes a desert and Canada stops getting snow.

Now, don't you see why Chai and I want to eat chocolate and become high priestesses? This stuff is depressin'.