One of the things about climate change is the way that particles in the atmosphere (aerosols) keep the temperature down. I was first alerted to the statistics when it was reported that after the 9/11 disaster, the USA grounded aircraft for three days and the temperature went up 1C. Whether this was true or not the combination of soot particles from burning coal, farming and aircraft contrails do have a combined effect in shielding the earth’s surface from the suns heat and suppressing the temperature. The big question is by how much?
Another anecdotal story is that when I was living in the UK in the 1970’s the temperature had been stable or even falling for forty years and this was accepted, when we had a message from New Zealand (probably Kevin Trenberth) that the temperature was rising steadily. This was all before satellites.
Looking at the NASA graph the pause in temperature from about 1940 through to about 1980 can be seen quite clearly. This was when the world was gearing up after World War 2 and coal plants were working round the clock to rebuild the economy. From 1980 Europe and the USA stated to clean up their cities by switching from coal to cleaner energy and the atmosphere began to clear and the temperature restarted its upwards path.
There may well be other factors such as El Niño’s and similar cycles of the major oceans but I would suggest that there could easily be an extra 1.0 C increase in temperature built into the system for when we stop burning coal and cut back on flying.
One of the things about climate change is the way that particles in the atmosphere (aerosols) keep the temperature down. I was first alerted to the statistics when it was reported that after the 9/11 disaster, the USA grounded aircraft for three days and the temperature went up 1C. Whether this was true or not the combination of soot particles from burning coal, farming and aircraft contrails do have a combined effect in shielding the earth’s surface from the suns heat and suppressing the temperature. The big question is by how much?
Another anecdotal story is that when I was living in the UK in the 1970’s the temperature had been stable or even falling for forty years and this was accepted, when we had a message from New Zealand (probably Kevin Trenberth) that the temperature was rising steadily. This was all before satellites.
Looking at the NASA graph the pause in temperature from about 1940 through to about 1980 can be seen quite clearly. This was when the world was gearing up after World War 2 and coal plants were working round the clock to rebuild the economy. From 1980 Europe and the USA stated to clean up their cities by switching from coal to cleaner energy and the atmosphere began to clear and the temperature restarted its upwards path.
There may well be other factors such as El Niño’s and similar cycles of the major oceans but I would suggest that there could easily be an extra 1.0 C increase in temperature built into the system for when we stop burning coal and cut back on flying.
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