Pandemic's cleaner air added heat to warming planet
A new study finds that cleaner air from the pandemic lockdown warmed the planet a bit in 2020, especially in places such as the eastern United States, Russia and China
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/study-pandemics-cleaner-air-added-heat-warming-planet-75641876
BY SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science Writer
February 2, 2021, 4:28 PM
BY SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science Writer
February 2, 2021, 4:28 PM
Earth spiked a bit of a fever in 2020, partly because of cleaner air from the pandemic lockdown, a new study found.
For a short time, temperatures in some places in the eastern United States, Russia and China were as much as half to two-thirds of a degree (.3 to .37 degrees Celsius) warmer. That’s due to less soot and sulfate particles from car exhaust and burning coal, which normally cool the atmosphere temporarily by reflecting the sun’s heat, Tuesday’s study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters reported.
Overall, the planet was about .05 degrees (.03 degrees Celsius) warmer for the year because the air had fewer cooling aerosols, which unlike carbon dioxide is pollution you can see, the study found.
“Cleaning up the air can actually warm the planet because that (soot and sulfate) pollution results in cooling” which climate scientists have long known, said study lead author Andrew Gettelman, an atmospheric scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. His calculations come from comparing 2020 weather to computer models that simulated a 2020 without the pollution reductions from pandemic lockdowns.
This temporary warming effect from fewer particles was stronger in 2020 than the effect of reduced heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions, Gettelman said. That’s because carbon stays in the atmosphere for more than a century with long-term effects, while aerosols remain in the air about a week.
Even without the reduction in cooling aerosols, global temperatures in 2020 already were flirting with breaking yearly heat record because of the burning of coal, oil and natural gas — and the aerosol effect may have been enough to help make this the hottest year in NASA’s measuring system, said top NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt, who wasn’t part of this study but said it confirms other research.
“Clean air warms the planet a tiny bit, but it kills a lot fewer people with air pollution,” Gettelman said.
For a short time, temperatures in some places in the eastern United States, Russia and China were as much as half to two-thirds of a degree (.3 to .37 degrees Celsius) warmer. That’s due to less soot and sulfate particles from car exhaust and burning coal, which normally cool the atmosphere temporarily by reflecting the sun’s heat, Tuesday’s study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters reported.
Overall, the planet was about .05 degrees (.03 degrees Celsius) warmer for the year because the air had fewer cooling aerosols, which unlike carbon dioxide is pollution you can see, the study found.
“Cleaning up the air can actually warm the planet because that (soot and sulfate) pollution results in cooling” which climate scientists have long known, said study lead author Andrew Gettelman, an atmospheric scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. His calculations come from comparing 2020 weather to computer models that simulated a 2020 without the pollution reductions from pandemic lockdowns.
This temporary warming effect from fewer particles was stronger in 2020 than the effect of reduced heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions, Gettelman said. That’s because carbon stays in the atmosphere for more than a century with long-term effects, while aerosols remain in the air about a week.
Even without the reduction in cooling aerosols, global temperatures in 2020 already were flirting with breaking yearly heat record because of the burning of coal, oil and natural gas — and the aerosol effect may have been enough to help make this the hottest year in NASA’s measuring system, said top NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt, who wasn’t part of this study but said it confirms other research.
“Clean air warms the planet a tiny bit, but it kills a lot fewer people with air pollution,” Gettelman said.
"Clean air warms the planet a tiny bit, but it kills a lot fewer people with air pollution."
Al Gore was correct with his statement concerning the consensus that the Earth is warming. However, that doesn’t apply to the cause of the warming.
And that is the precise issue. Though the planet is warming, climatologists disagree as to the cause. While some favor the CO2 hypothesis, others don’t and that is for a variety of reasons.
That’s the way science is. there is no political conformity, which is profoundly anti-science.
You can check my link below to see some of the research I’ve gathered.
What is obvious though is the world-wide pollution. There’s no question about what’s causing that.
I feel that this and other crisis’s were facing is due to runaway population growth. China and India, who have the world’s greatest populations, are also the greatest contributors to global pollution, and that’s just a single example.
Because of uninformed climate-change zealots, our attention has been been drawn away from the very obvious and very real threat of runaway population growth.
The tsunami that will sweep modern civilization is on the horizon, but most are looking in the wrong direction.
George F. Spicka
2021 February 4
Al Gore was correct with his statement concerning the consensus that the Earth is warming. However, that doesn’t apply to the cause of the warming.
And that is the precise issue. Though the planet is warming, climatologists disagree as to the cause. While some favor the CO2 hypothesis, others don’t and that is for a variety of reasons.
That’s the way science is. there is no political conformity, which is profoundly anti-science.
You can check my link below to see some of the research I’ve gathered.
What is obvious though is the world-wide pollution. There’s no question about what’s causing that.
I feel that this and other crisis’s were facing is due to runaway population growth. China and India, who have the world’s greatest populations, are also the greatest contributors to global pollution, and that’s just a single example.
Because of uninformed climate-change zealots, our attention has been been drawn away from the very obvious and very real threat of runaway population growth.
The tsunami that will sweep modern civilization is on the horizon, but most are looking in the wrong direction.
George F. Spicka
2021 February 4