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Reductions in industrial emissions in many countries, along with the use of particulate filters for car exhausts and smoke stacks, seem to have reduced the amount of dirt in the atmosphere and made the sky more transparent.

That sounds like very good news. But the researchers say that more solar energy arriving on the ground will also make the surface warmer, and this may add to the problems of global warming. More sunlight will also have knock-on effects on cloud cover, winds, rainfall and air temperature that are difficult to predict.

The results suggest that a downward trend in the amount of sunlight reaching the surface, which has been observed since measurements began in the late 1950s, is now over.

The researchers argue that this trend, commonly called ‘global dimming’, reversed more than a decade ago, probably following the collapse of communist economies and the consequent decrease in industrial pollutants.

The widespread brightening has remained unnoticed until now simply because there wasn’t enough data for a statistically significant analysis, says Martin Wild, an atmospheric scientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and an author on one of the reports.

Sunny days

Wild and his team looked at data on surface sunshine levels from hundreds of devices around the planet. They found that since the 1980s there has been a transition from decreasing to increasing solar radiation nearly everywhere, except in heavily polluted areas such as India and at scattered sites in Australia, Africa, and South America1.

A second study, led by Rachel Pinker from the University of Maryland, College Park, found a similar trend by looking at satellite data, although their research suggests the extent of the brightening is smaller2. Unlike ground stations, satellites can sample the whole planet, including the oceans. However, satellite data are difficult to calibrate, and so are considered less accurate than measurements from the ground.

Surprisingly, Wild’s study shows a brightening trend in China, despite the fact that there is a booming, fossil-fuel-intensive industry in that country. Wild says he can only speculate that the use of clean-air technologies in China might be more widespread and efficient than has been thought.

In contrast, India’s vast brown clouds of smog, which result from wildfires and the use of fossil fuels, have reduced the sunlight reaching the ground.

Just warming up

Researchers will now focus on working out the long-term effects of clearer air. One thing they do know is that black particulate matter in the air has been contributing a cooling effect to the ground. “It is clear that the greenhouse effect has been partly masked in the past by air pollution,” says Andreas Macke, a meteorologist at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany. [My emphasis . . . ed]

Uncertainties remain part of the game because scientists have only a limited ability to track cloud cover and particulates, says Macke. Increased cooperation in programmes such as the NASA-led International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project should help to close the gaps in our knowledge of how dirty air affects climate, he says.

Wild M., et al. Science, 308. 847 - 850 (2005).
Pinker R. T., et al. Science, 308. 850 - 854 (2005).”

Yeah like I said were fucked

You want to hear something even more fucked, there is a regulation on what our cars/planes can produce for polution. Thispolution is shit that causes smog and the polution we can see, well as we discontinue with this and the sky becomes clearer the temperture will jump 1 degree. That is huge and the reason is because the crap in the air reflects the sunlight back out to space. As this decreases more sunlight will get through making the planet warmer. So in making our air cleaner we help speed up global warming. I am telling you our only hope is technology.

That’s where we differ. The only hope is you and me and everyone we know and everyone they know and everyone they know.

THere are no solutions that have us working with nature to prevent global warming it is already past that. We could turn off everything today and there is still enough crap floating around that would keep raising the temp of this planet.

The only hope we have is with technology and wicked smart people finding away to fix what we have broken in the last 5000 years (but mostly in the last 700 or so)

What I’m saying is global warming type shit. You can say all you want that humans are humans because we utilize technology to “overcome nature,” but if we don’t get our act together, and I mean toot-sweet!, then humans will be humans because we killed the freakin’ planet and created our own extinction.

We have to stop coming up with solutions that depend upon us raping nature. We need to come up with solutions that work with her.

Survival is not always about conquering. Sometimes it is about compromise.

Trees are great no doubt, but they also make lovely houses, desks and books. Where would we be without those?