For me it always important to point out that reduced reflection due to cleaner air is a net positive for us. Just because some polluting aerosols reduced the rate of global warming early on does...
For policymakers, the message is clear: cutting aerosol pollution cleans up the air at the expense of affecting slightly the way the planet reflects the sun.
For me it always important to point out that reduced reflection due to cleaner air is a net positive for us. Just because some polluting aerosols reduced the rate of global warming early on does not mean that that the abundance of aerosols from our emissions were a good thing. I think a certain crowd has a knee jerk reaction to think we should be putting more aerosols into the air again rather than continuing to reduce the other things we're doing causing atmospheric warming. And I think articles like this should be clear that this is an unintended side affect of something positive we've done and not a bad thing.
Slight tangent because this is not what the article is about: Geo-engineering folks seem to want to overlook decades of gains in pollution reduction and cleaner air when they start talking about dumping chemicals into the atmosphere on purpose. Which I personally find baffling because it's the same chemicals we've worked so hard to keep out of the atmosphere because of things like acid rain. -_-
If you want to jump right to the original research,
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2511595122
For me it always important to point out that reduced reflection due to cleaner air is a net positive for us. Just because some polluting aerosols reduced the rate of global warming early on does not mean that that the abundance of aerosols from our emissions were a good thing. I think a certain crowd has a knee jerk reaction to think we should be putting more aerosols into the air again rather than continuing to reduce the other things we're doing causing atmospheric warming. And I think articles like this should be clear that this is an unintended side affect of something positive we've done and not a bad thing.
Slight tangent because this is not what the article is about: Geo-engineering folks seem to want to overlook decades of gains in pollution reduction and cleaner air when they start talking about dumping chemicals into the atmosphere on purpose. Which I personally find baffling because it's the same chemicals we've worked so hard to keep out of the atmosphere because of things like acid rain. -_-